Before Joel Embiid was cleared to play five-on-five last Friday – some eight months after he tore the meniscus in his left knee and some six months after surgery – video surfaced of him playing tennis and jogging the streets of Philadelphia, both late at night.
If some Sixers fans were enraged, others found it endearing. And coach Brett Brown took the latter (i.e., safer) path when asked whether tennis might be part of Embiid’s rehab last Wednesday, before the preseason opener against Memphis.
“Evidently,” he said.
Pressed, he went further.
“I don’t mind,” he said. “I really don’t mind. I understand why people might think cobblestones (could be dangerous) and tripping and all that. Joel is Joel. There’s a part of him, that he wants to be normal. He wants to feel the city. It was a harmless trot. He was playing tennis, trying to get fresh air, and trying to find some way to be active. I don’t have any problem with it.”
And one more thing.
“I admit that it’s a little bit out of the ordinary, having (a) 7-foot-2 (player) running down the streets of Philadelphia, but Joel Embiid is unique,” Brown said.
All of this underscores the challenge of coaching in the NBA – how the inmates might not run the asylum, but they certainly have a say in how business is conducted within the premises. No less a coach than the late Chuck Daly, who ran the Bad Boy Pistons and the original Dream Team, once said this of directing NBA players: “They allow you to coach them.” There’s a lot of truth in that.
This is not to say that every coach is a pushover. I don’t believe that for a second. It’s just to say that pro coaches must walk a fine line. That they must push the right buttons without alienating their best players.
Brown’s people skills are as great as anyone’s. He understands the delicate balance. How critical it is that Embiid is on board with things. How he is the essential guy in this rebuild, at both ends of the court. (Witness how the Sixers surrendered 110 points in each of their first two preseason games without him.)
So in public, at least, Brown steps lightly. Again, I don’t believe this makes him a soft touch. I believe that behind closed doors he coaches Embiid, and everyone else. But I also believe Brown is keenly aware of the balance of power in today’s NBA.
His “Joel is Joel” line, in fact, is reminiscent of Jimmy Lynam’s days as the Sixers’ coach. Whenever his best player, Charles Barkley, wandered off the reservation – whenever he voiced dissent, shall we say, or threw guys through plate-glass windows of certain establishments – Jimmy’s all-purpose response was this: “Charles is Charles.”
It is as good a way as any to keeping one’s true thoughts under wraps, to avoid saying something that would have wound up a headline in Lynam’s day or a viral tweet now.
Charles is Charles. Joel is Joel. Nothing to see here. Let’s move along.
As a side note, understand that Lynam knew how to push Barkley’s buttons. Former Sixers center Mike Gminski told me the story of how at the end of a game-day shootaround in San Antonio one time, Lynam bet Barkley $100 he could score on him.
The way Gminski told it, Barkley jumped at that action. Lynam began talking smack, stirring the pot, as he went to collect the ball at the top of the circle.
“And Charlie’s all worked up,” Gminski said. “Jimmy throws him a little head fake, and Charles goes flying up in the air, trying to block it. Jimmy takes a couple dribbles, lays the ball in, starts laughing and walks off the floor.”
When I asked Lynam to confirm that story a few years back, he demurred. But he didn’t exactly deny it, either. “That I could get a basket without a great deal of difficulty on Barkley, I can confirm that,” he said. Barkley did confirm it, but then quickly changed the subject.
The point being that when coaching NBA players, there are more ways than one to skin a cat. If in fact skinning is required.