Shaq slanders Joel Embiid’s rest program with blatant lies on The Big Podcast

Joel Embiid has been criticized by some NBA greats for openly discussing his rest plan for the upcoming season. Shaq has been incredibly vocal about it, and while he’s been loud about it, he’s also been very, very wrong.

Shaq went on his podcast to call Embiid soft for not playing back-to-backs while citing absolutely zero factual information:

Shaq calls out Joel Embiid for not playing in back-to-backs and calls him soft

“You don’t get double-teamed, you don’t get triple-teamed. All he’s doing is pick and pop. Why are you tired?”

(🎥 @bigpodwithshaq / https://t.co/1EwLOAdD3I) pic.twitter.com/oHJ97d4NW7

— NBACentral (@TheDunkCentral) October 25, 2024

Once I heard him say, “You don’t get double-teamed,” I knew he had zero clue what he was talking about. The whole clip is complete nonsense, and honestly borders on slander.

The only player double-teamed more than Joel last season was Giannis Antetokounmpo. The big fella gets doubled and hacked more than basically everyone in the league.

Couple that with a severe injury history that has hampered his postseason success, and it’s obvious that playing all 82 games is just not in the cards anymore for Joel.

It’s not like Joel is tired, like The Big Dummy claims. Yes, conditioning has been an issue in the past, but it’s at the beginning of the season. This is about prolonging the career of the most prolific scorer of his generation and keeping him healthy enough to compete in the post-season.

It’s also not his fault that the NBA regular season has been rendered almost meaningless by the playoff structure. 82 games to eliminate five teams in the Eastern Conference? Yeah, that makes pretty much zero sense.

I understand wanting the stars of the league to play in every game. But that’s neither tenable for Joel nor worth it in terms of helping the team succeed.

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