Two days ago, the Philadelphia 76ers big man and league MVP Joel Embiid made some waves with his comments while being interviewed at the Uninterrupted Sports Film Festival.

While talking with Maverick Carter onstage, Embiid said,  just want to win a championship. Whatever it takes…”. Ok, no problem there, right? Of course he does. If he didn’t, that would be a concern. But then he continues, “I don’t know where that’s gonna be, whether it’s in Philly or anywhere else, I just want to have a chance to accomplish that. I want to see what it feels like to win that first one, and then you can think about the next one. It’s not easy, but it takes more than one or two, three guys. You got to have good people around you, and myself, every single day, I work hard to be at that level so I can make it happen. So, every single day, I’m working towards that.”

On the surface, he seems frustrated and may feel like his window is closing on his chance to raise the Larry O’ Brien Trophy. But there are two things here that should be alarming.

“..in Philly or anywhere else..” is what got the most rise out of the fans since this interview came out. We have seen this story before in the NBA. In fact, way too often. If a player becomes frustrated with a situation, more times than not, that player is getting their way and is getting shipped off to another team. The inmates run the asylum in the Association, and that should be what ticks the fans off. There is no loyalty within the sport to be quite honest.

The second part that ticked off Sixers fans was his comments eluding to it taking more than “one or two, three guys” to get the job done. The Sixers management over the last few years have tried to surround Embiid with top tier talent. The most recent move was trading for James Harden. Harden did underwhelm in the playoffs when the team needed him most, but bottom line is, he’s absolutely the best point guard that Embiid has had. The Sixers acquired guys like Jimmy Butler, Tobias Harris, JJ Redick and also drafted Ben Simmons and Markell Fultz to try to build a championship caliber roster with. And obviously none of those moves resulted with a title. So both things can be true here, the Sixers have tried damn hard, and Embiid hasn’t had the “three (right) guys” to bring it home.

Of course, a big gripe with all of this is that Embiid won the regular season MVP award and during this year’s playoffs he didn’t play like it. Yes, once again he was injured during the run, but he once again failed to see the dominating force that we were used to seeing when the team really needed it. And that’s what the fans should REALLY be frustrated with.

To make comments like this, Embiid should really be looking at himself in the mirror first. Does it make it easier to win when you’re surrounded with top tier talent? Of course it does, but no matter what the situation is, if you are jogging up and down the court with no purpose in Game 7 of a playoff series, you aren’t doing yourself or the fanbase any favors when it comes to making remarks like this. Effort goes a long way in this town, and due to the lack of that, there is a lot of hope being lost in this era of Sixers basketball.

Embiid did walk his comments back a tad yesterday on Twitter by saying he was just trolling. Sorry, not buying it. Based on the post game comments, and the candid nature of his response onstage two days ago, he is trying to save face with the fans.

For a fanbase to go through “the process” for those long 6 or 7 years, yet still supporting the cause because of the belief that this would result in something special, cannot be forgotten. Embiid is the only drafted player that still remains from it all, and if you want to be technical, Harden is direct product of it after trading away Ben Simmons. That’s pretty much it. Anyone else was signed to deals while the train was back on track, but now Embiid may be eluding to bailing on it? This is despite the brass trying to give him the most help they could (not to mention the numerous big men they consistently sign knowing Embiid needs scheduled rest), and going through sports hell of losing on purpose, which should be a slap in the face.

Truth is, because of the excuses and complaints about the surrounding cast, some of which was warranted (see Ben Simmons), the coaching changes (Brett Brown, Doc Rivers, and now Nick Nurse), the fanbase’s patience is wearing razor-thin. Not just with the Sixers team, but with Embiid as well. As the face of the franchise, the inability to be “the guy” with everything on the line is something that may end up being added to the end of the sentence when you are older and describing him to a young child. “yeah, Embiid was great, but he just couldn’t get it done.”. Sound familiar? Donovan McNabb, Charles Barkley, Eric Lindros, Allen Iverson…the list goes on.

We have seen this story before and it seems like it’s unfolding right before our eyes once again. If Embiid doesn’t get to win here and is indeed moved, we will survive. Some people would probably embrace it at this point just to move on from nonsense like this. And to be honest, it could be hard to blame them after constantly being disappointed year after year. So yeah, we are losing patience too, Joel.