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The Sixers’ season hasn’t even started yet and the NBA is already investigating the team.
The NBA will look into the team’s plan for former MVP Joel Embiid, ESPN reported Wednesday, as the Sixers have ruled him out through the first three games of the season for “left knee injury management.”
Embiid has a history of dealing with injuries going into the playoffs. Having tried several strategies with Embiid over the years, the team is trying to get him maximal rest this season. The Sixers have remained all in around Embiid, signing Paul George to a four-year, $212 million contract this summer and extending Tyrese Maxey.
Sixers president of basketball operations Daryl Morey has already ruled out playing Embiid and George in back-to-backs this year. It seems inevitable the decision to do so will interfere with the league’s participation policies, which were voted on and approved by the league’s board of governors in September 2023 and were implemented at the start of last season.
“We’re going to be smart about it,” Morey said Oct. 14. “Part of being smart about it is having both Paul and Joel probably not play many back-to-backs, if any.”
The NBA unveiled the policies ahead of last season as a way to combat load management and give players incentive to avoid sitting out, such as attaching games played minimums to awards such as the MVP and All-NBA, which come with massive financial incentives.
Additionally, the league introduced rules that said teams can’t bench multiple star players at the same time if they’re healthy while mandating they must play in nationally televised games and in-season tournament games if they’re not injured. Embiid has an extensive injury history with his lower body, but technically came to training camp healthy after playing in the Olympics this summer.
The league defined a star as a player who has made an All-Star or All-NBA team in the past three seasons. Embiid has been an All-Star for the last seven seasons and was first-team All-NBA in 2022–2023. Teams can seek approval for exceptions to rest healthy stars; the league also banned the practice of shutting down a star player for an extended period without injury.
The new policies came with fines. First-time offenders are fined $100,000, which the Nets were after resting multiple healthy players against the Bucks last December, making them the first to pay for the new policy. Brooklyn had no player fit the league’s definition of a star, but rested four rotation players, including Spencer Dinwiddie and Nic Claxton, while barely playing three more, such as Mikal Bridges, the team’s primary scorer. Second-time offenses cost $250,000. The third offense and all subsequent offenses would result in a $1 million fine.
A league spokesperson did not immediately respond to a request for comment about the investigation.
Depending on how the investigation goes, the NBA could hit the Sixers with three offenses, one for each game, if it deems appropriate, which would give the team $1.35 million in fines a week into the season. Philadelphia has 15 back-to-backs this season and 21 games scheduled for national television, but some of those can be added or dropped depending on the course the season takes.
The Sixers’ season opener against the Bucks is a national television game on ESPN, which both Embiid and Paul George will miss. Like Embiid, George has been an All-Star the last two years, meaning both of them missing a game—or either of them missing a national TV game—automatically triggers a league investigation.
If the Sixers were to rack up, say, $10 million in fines, it would still be a pittance to what they have invested in Embiid. The team’s roster this year will cost roughly $182 million, with Embiid earning $51 million alone. Combined with its luxury tax bill, the Sixers’ roster costs almost $200 million for this season. The league did not respond to questions about how it would treat a team that blatantly and repeatedly violated the player participation policy.
