Joel Embiid: The villain we need?
For the past few years, the likes of LeBron James and the Warriors have been a collective villain for the NBA. Between LeBron’s dominance in the East and the Warriors’ dominance in the West, the regular season was just a filler until the Finals.
Now, the Warriors are toast for the season because of injuries and LeBron is making his way in the West with a newly minted L.A. Lakers squad. LeBron may still be a villain, but he’s not entirely the one-headed monster he was in Cleveland.
Joel Embiid seems to want to take that status and fly with it:
Embiid is delighted on the second replay, pointing to his bench, and imitating some punches after the scuffle is broken up. Karl-Anthony Towns, on the other hand, is supremely upset tearing his arm away from his coaches as they walk to the bench.
Towns is rightfully upset; it looks as if Ben Simmons was throwing him in a chokehold on the floor with Towns seemingly tapping out. Nevertheless, both Embiid and Towns had some choice words on the internet afterward, which I cannot indulge in this PG-rated post.
Embiid has always been delighted with trash-talking, even though he’s since claimed to be putting it aside.
https://twitter.com/JoelEmbiid/status/1189796352391352321
The league settled with a two-game suspension for both Towns and Embiid and Simmons avoided further trouble, which is up to you to decide whether that was a good or bad choice.
Still, let’s be honest, good trash-talking makes the game more exciting as long as it doesn’t come to a full Malice at the Palace debacle. Personally, a two-game suspension is a short and sweet ban and was the right call by the league.
In any great story, we need a villain — a harsh, belittling figure that terrorizes us in our sleep. Embiid seems destined to become that villain, so all I can hope is keeps talking and talking so I can again witness him crying after his next exit from the playoffs.