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Joel Embiid has yet to play a single game this season, but he is officially in the 2024-25 NBA stat book due to a technical foul.
NBA officials announced Monday that Embiid was issued a technical foul following Philadelphia’s overtime victory against the Indiana Pacers on Sunday. The league office reviewed the situation and issued the foul.
Shams Charania of ESPN noted that the postgame technical was due to Embiid waving a towel during Andrew Nembhard’s late free throw attempt.
The free throws in question took place in the last 20 seconds of overtime. Embiid stood near the bench and waved the towel as Nembhard made one of two attempts to cut the lead to two points.
Philadelphia ended up winning by four after late free throws from Tyrese Maxey.
It was the 76ers’ first victory in three games of the season. They haven’t had Embiid or Paul George on the field yet, which has put much of the offensive responsibility on Maxey. The guard responded Sunday by scoring 45 points.
Even though Embiid has yet to play this season, he has made headlines.
The NBA is investigating the 76ers’ rest policy regarding the star big man. Philadelphia cited “left knee management” as why he sat out during the preseason and started the campaign on the sidelines, which was notable since he suffered a torn meniscus in January.
However, he still played for Team USA at the 2024 Paris Olympics over the summer.
Embiid also turned heads when he told ESPN’s Tim Bontemps earlier this month, “If I had to guess, I would probably never play back-to-back the rest of my career.”
Injuries have always been a storyline during the seven-time All-Star’s career, as he never played more than 68 games in a season and missed his first two campaigns after being the third overall pick in the 2014 draft. Keeping him healthy for the playoffs is surely a priority for the team, although the NBA may disagree on how it will do so depending on the results of the investigation.
So far, Embiid has more technical fouls than minutes played this season.
