Before the NBA2024-25 regular season officially began, Philadelphia star Embiid revealed a lot of news, according to ESPN's Tim Popouse, after the series with the Knicks last season, the Great told management: "I have to do everything to make sure I stay healthy in the playoffs." If I had to say, I wouldn't be playing back-to-back fights for the rest of my career. ”
It's crazy to just pick out that you don't play back-to-back games. It's understandable what Embiid thinks, after all, staying healthy is king, and it's not like there have been players who have refused to play back-to-back games before. The most well-known is Leonard, but Xiaoka played the highest regular season attendance in recent years last season, and the new rotation he invented to play in the first half and rest in the second half made fans sigh at the creativity of Kazige. Now, Embiid is even crazier than Brother Kazi, and he directly picks out that he doesn't fight back-to-back, if he really puts it into action, then the emperor will be targeted and sanctioned by a series of targets.
First of all, there is no escaping the fine. Under last season's new rotation rules, star players who have been selected to the All-Star or All-Star Team in the past three seasons will be fined $100,000 for the first time, $250,000 for the second time, and $1 million per game for the third time and above. Each team averaged 14.9 back-to-back games this season, and if Embiid did miss all the back-to-back games, the fine alone would be more than $10 million. Don't look at the emperor's salary in the new season is more than 50 million US dollars, but it is only half of it after tax, and this fine is really not something that can be paid.
In addition, last season also implemented new individual award rules, requiring players to play at least 65 games in the regular season to be eligible for the awards, which caused many stars with poor attendance to fall directly off the award list. Embiid, who was extremely aggressive at the start of last season's season and once led the MVP nominee list, was also a victim, and he missed all the awards after he was injured in a game against the Warriors. As mentioned earlier, if Embiid gives up about 15 back-to-back games in the new season, then if he still wants to retain the award qualifications, there will be only 5 games left to miss games due to injuries and other reasons, and the margin for error is very small. In other words, there is no need for the league to take action, as long as the rules are followed, it may be difficult for Embiid to participate in the selection of MVP, DPOY, All-Star and All-Defensive Team.
If Embiid was just angry at the time, he would have made a choice in the new season and even in his career after, otherwise it would be equivalent to a desperate gamble for his health. If you can win the championship in the end, it's okay to say, otherwise you really gave up too much. In your opinion, will Embiid really take a break for all future back-to-back games?