“He’s the guy that failed in the playoffs” - Frank Isola sounds off on Joel Embiid as 76ers fiasco continues

Joel Embiid won the 2022-23 regular-season MVP award. However, he struggled to make a deep NBA Playoff run as the Philadelphia 76ers lost to the Boston Celtics in Round 2 of the NBA playoffs.

Joel Embiid is 29 years old and is yet to win an NBA championship. While much of the talk around the league is regarding the 76ers improving their roster, Frank Isola from ESPN had a different take. Isola sounded off on Embiid and argued that Embiid is the one who is underperforming, not his team. Here is what Isola said:

"That's the part I don't get. Like, if he had these incredible games and if he was getting no help, I totally get it. ... The idea is - you need to bring in guys to surround Joel Embiid with. It gets completely forgotten that he's the guy that failed in the playoffs. It's not everybody else's fault. ... Who's out there? You wanna get LeBron?"

Isola argued that Embiid is supposed to be the man who everybody was looking at in the playoffs and he came up short against the Celtics. It wasn't a case of LeBron James against the Warriors in the finals where James was dominating but his team was short on talent. Instead, it was Embiid himself who did not play up to his potential.

Joel Embiid averaged 33.1 points, 10.2 rebounds, 4.8 assists, 1.7 blocks and 1.0 steals per game on 54.8% shooting from the floor in the regular season. These averages dropped significantly in Round 2 of the NBA playoffs against the Celtics. Here, Embiid averaged a mere 25.5 points, 9.0 rebounds, 2.0 assists and 0.5 steals on 42.1% shooting from the floor.

Embiid's performance had a significant drop in the playoffs and the lack of success can't be blamed on his teammates. Isola continued by comparing the 76ers to the Nuggets and further talked about Embiid's poor performance:

"And, it looks bad too because if you look at Denver - they don't have a second All-Star. James Harden is an MVP in the league. Tobias Harris has accomplished a lot in his career. ... They have talent there. Those two games call for the MVP of the league to perform like the MVP of the league. That didn't happen."

Joel Embiid did not live up to his MVP-caliber performances that the fans were used to witnessing in the regular season. It seems that the playoff pressure got to Embiid yet again as the 76ers failed to reach the NBA Finals, let alone win the NBA championship.

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Joel Embiid blamed his teammates for 76ers failed playoff run

While Joel Embiid was supposed to be the leader and MVP for the 76ers and lead them to the NBA Trophy, he did not live up to the hype. In fact, he threw his teammates under the bus instead of accepting the blame on himself.

Here is what Embiid had to say:

"We got the chance to win, but it's gonna take more than us. We gotta look at ourselves. I gotta be better and I will be better. ... All of us, we gotta come back and found ways to just keep improving and help the team. You can't win alone. I can't win alone. Me and James, we just can't win alone. Basketball is played 5 vs 5."

While Embiid did not quite blame Harden for the loss, he definitely seemed to throw the rest of the team under the bus by mentioning basketball as a five-on-five game. This comment was misleading because it wasn't the teammates but rather Embiid who did not live up to his potential.

Embiid missed Game 1 of the 76ers-Celtics series due to a knee injury. However, the 76ers managed to win that game without Embiid. Once Embiid did come back, he ended up winning only two of the remaining six games against the Celtics.

In a Game 2 loss, Embiid scored 15 points and had three rebounds. In the pivotal Game 7, Embiid again scored only 15 points, had eight rebounds, one assist and four turnovers. The Celtics won this game 112-88. Embiid couldn't buy himself a bucket as he only made five of his 18 shots.

Given Embiid's poor performance, Shaquille O'Neal had some strong words for him. Here is what O'Neal said:

"I'm watching how these guys play now, you know, especially like, you know, Joel Embiid. He's 6-11, he's not posting up. He's shooting jumpers, and then you've got the nerve to say, you got the nerve to say, 'Me and James (Harden) can't do it by ourselves?' Get your big a** down in the paint. If you get your big a** down in the paint, you can do it by yourself. But that's not how people play anymore."

Shaquille O'Neal was neither a fan of Embiid's game in the playoffs nor was O'Neal a fan of Embiid blaming his teammates. Like O'Neal, fans and critics around the basketball world believe that Embiid simply needs to be better come playoff time.