Embiid’s rejection not criminal

PHILADELPHIA >> Mike D’Antoni watched it develop from afar, safe from any potential controversy, protected from the result and the crossed eyes that would follow.

Joel Embiid wasn’t elected to the All-Star team? Don’t look at him.

“Those Eastern Conference coaches,” the Houston Rockets’ coach said, half in mock disgust, half smiling. “That would be where to start.”

D’Antoni, an assistant to Brett Brown last season, has been around the NBA off and on since 1973, since 1993 as a coach. He knows how coaches think, why they think it, how they can be read and influenced, how they might teach picks, how they

might pick All-Stars. And when the results of the coaches’ voting for the AllStar reserves this week revealed that Embiid was not elected, somebody, if not everybody, in that tight professional community had to have known what happened.

While the Sixers expressed disappointment, while their fans did everything but overturn buses, when the sly Embiid took to the twittersphere and joked about the unreliability of the popular vote in any election, there was one undeniable reality.

He too seldom plays what some like to call basketball.

There are reasons, clear and accepted, the 76ers are proud of their transparency. Embiid had just spent the last two years recovering from one foot surgery, then another, all of which came after a back issue that cost him the end of his only college season at Kansas. They have sports scientists who have examined X-rays and basketball analytics, and they literally tell Brown when Embiid can play and when he must rest. And they have prohibited him from working on consecutive days and from playing into a 29th minute in any particular game.

So the Sixers and Brown obey. It’s what they do. Still, they thought, or at least they hoped, that they did enough to run Embiid through a tight side door to the Feb. 19 All-Star Game in New Orleans. Their first attempt was to convince the fans, who would provide the bulk of the voting for the All-Star starters. Embiid collected plenty of votes, but he was denied a start due to a quirk in the system tied to particular frontcourt positions. Either way, he wasn’t elected, and there were no charges of voter fraud. It’s just what happened.

But then came the second chance, and the polling of the coaches in each conference. And Embiid, whose positive impact on the Sixers has been stunning, seemed ahead in the polls. He’d been leading all rookies in scoring and rebounding, changing shots at one end, swishing them at the other. He’d been spreading joy with his style of play and humor with his command of a computer keyboard. He was one of the best players in professional basketball.

The coaches, though, resisted. And while there may never be an explanation for their chilliness, there is one leading theory: It was pushback against what many in the NBA believe is the Sixers’ continuing disregard for basketball purity, a message that all basketball spoils will be spread around those who work every game, every minute, every play.

Full-time, not parttime.

“I don’t know if it was a ‘message,’” Brown said. “I think there was some of that. If people hear there were minute-restrictions, if people hear that he can’t play every game, and we started out the year with some losses, that all probably equals not helping Jo.

“What we see when he actually plays is that there is zero doubt that he is an NBA AllStar. There is none in my mind. And his time will come in multiples. I think that some of the reasons, I’m guessing, from my coaching fraternity, were born out of that reasoning. And some of that you can understand, if you’re not with him every day and you’re not looking at him every day and seeing what we see. But what we see, to me, confirms categorically that he is an NBA All-Star.” Thus, the disconnect. Joel Embiid is not an NBA All-Star, no matter how entertaining his play. He’s been excellent. But plenty of NBA players have been excellent, including the Atlanta Hawks’ Paul Millsap, who loosely has been cast as the villain who cost Embiid an AllStar spot. But he is just as vital to the Hawks as Embiid is to the Sixers, plays more often, had already been to three AllStar games, and annually helps Atlanta into the playoffs.

Embiid has played 31 total games in three years, not once hitting the 30-minute mark. What? The rest of the NBA is supposed to reward that, just because “The Process” is a neat nickname?

Brown has said that campaigns for NBA awards can be fun, with teams sending various reminders to the voters, occasionally in giftbasket form. The Sixers can try more of that next season. But at some point, they can try something better and allow Embiid to play. It’s the only way they will win over skeptical voters in a gossipy industry, where the way the Sixers have tried to back-door the traditional routes to basketball success has not been roundly saluted.

“This is a little blip on his radar over a body of work that we’re going to look back on,” Brown said. “Life moves on. He’s an All-Star in my mind.” That’s great. That’s not great enough.

The voters have spoken on Joel Embiid. They have said they need to see more.

To contact Jack McCaffery, email him at jmccaffery@21stcenturymedia.com; follow him on Twitter @ JackMcCaffery

Jack McCaffery Columnist