Philadelphia 76ers center Joel Embiid. Trevor Ruszkowski-USA TODAY Sports

LeBron James blasts media members for questioning Joel Embiid's injury status

By Sai Mohan | Last updated 2/2/24

LeBron James seemingly woke up and chose violence on this Friday morning.

The Los Angeles Lakers star sent out a series of tweets to call out analysts and podcasters who questioned the veracity of Joel Embiid's knee injury, which forced the Sixers center to miss a handful of games earlier in the season. Upon his return to the court against the Warriors on Tuesday, Embiid ended up suffering a torn meniscus in his left knee, an unfortunate event that effectively ended his hopes of meeting the 65-game quota and thereby repeating as MVP.

Now he’s out with an injury because of it. Not 1 person has went back on tv or their dumbass podcast and apologized to that MAN!! No accountability ️️️
— LeBron James (@KingJames) February 2, 2024

To James' point, the NBA had earlier conducted an investigation into the Sixers' reporting on Embiid's injury status, fining the franchise for Embiid sitting out the marquee match-up against Nikola Jokic last weekend. Thereafter, several media analysts and fans floated the theory of Embiid ducking his Nuggets rival -- pointing to the fact that he hadn't played a game in Denver since 2019.

Earlier, Draymond Green voiced similar concerns about Embiid "forcing himself to play" just to remain in contention for the MVP award. Furthermore, a report from Sam Amick of The Athletic suggested that Embiid was "battered and bruised before February even arrived" and he essentially forced himself to play in games just to change the media narrative surrounding him.

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