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The Philadelphia 76ers held a team meeting on Monday night, in an attempt to turn the season around, after a loss against the Miami Heat dropped them to 2-11 on the season (they have since lost again and are now 2-12)
That meeting was subsequently reported on by ESPN’s Shams Charania, who noted that Tyrese Maxey called out Joel Embiid for being routinely late to team activities, among other details leaked.
On Thursday, Paul George spoke about the meeting during an episode of Podcast P Presented by Wave Sports + Entertainment (6:10 mark):
“That’s normal in the NBA– teams go through that,” he said. “I’ve been on multiple teams where we’ll at some point have a meeting and a check-in if things aren’t going right or if we know we could be playing better and we’re trying to get the most out of one another, that’s normal. That happens. … It was healthy, it was positive conversation, it was healthy conversations. We all just want the best. We are at a point where we’re a team that cares, right? A team that naturally cares about what’s going on with their team. They’re going to have sit downs and they’re going to discuss, how can we get back on track or start winning tradition or winning culture. So that’s just where we’re at with it. “
George was not pleased that the team meeting was leaked to the media, however.
“It being leaked, that’s where it kind of negates everything that we had in that meeting as far as trusting in one another and putting everything out there so that we can all have these conversations and it being not taken from a bad place,” George noted. “So it was kind of f–ked up that got leaked.”
Embiid had a similar take.
“Whoever leaked that is a real piece of s–t,” he told reporters on Wednesday. “But even then, we talked about a lot of things. I don’t want to get into the details, but that whole thing probably took 30 seconds.”
Some of Philly’s struggles are to be expected. The team made major changes in the offseason, adding George, Caleb Martin, Eric Gordon, Reggie Jackson, Andre Drummond and Guerschon Yabusele in free agency while drafting Jared McCain (who has been one of the few bright spots thus far and has earned himself a starting position).
That much roster turnover takes time to coalesce, but it’s been further hampered by the injuries that sidelined Embiid and George to start the season and forced Maxey to miss several games as well. Wednesday night’s loss to the Memphis Grizzlies was the first time the trio of Embiid, George and Maxey had played a regular season game together.
It was also the first time that Embiid looked like his normal self, posting 35 points and 11 rebounds in what was easily his best game of the season. But while he appeared to be back in top form, Maxey was incredibly rusty in his return and played on a minutes restriction (3-of-13 from the field and eight points in 20 minutes), while George suffered a hyperextended left knee in the third quarter and didn’t return to the game.
The Sixers have dug themselves an immense hole, though they have 68 games to shovel themselves free. Monday’s team meeting was perhaps the first step in beginning that process.
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