Welcome to Glass Slipper! I can’t wait for the talking heads to blame that Kermit the Frog doll when the Raiders get swept by Kansas City this year; please enjoy the show.

- Jacob Rhee

What is Joel Embiid doing? It’s a question we’ve all asked before, at one point or another. Maybe it was early in his professional career, when he was going truly wild on Twitter. It might have been during crunch time of basically any massive Sixers game, where Embiid looks gassed and sometimes even disconnected. Or perhaps it was just recently, when that New York Times interview was published; Joel claimed that he would be in GOAT conversations without injuries, and said that LeBron isn’t as good as he was a couple years ago.

In fairness to Embiid, those two statements aren’t completely outlandish. Well, the GOAT thing kind of is. I think he’s currently tracking to finish his career as one of the 40 best players ever. If the guy had never gotten hurt - we’ll give him a ring and an extra MVP as a result of this hypothetical - it would have probably launched him into the top 15. Far from entering MJ-LeBron discussions, but a big change nonetheless. Embiid’s declaration about James’s decline is probably true, but it was just so unnecessary. Joel is by far the oldest ringless player on the US roster; these Olympics are a huge chance for him to finally accomplish something meaningful with a team. Going out of your way to tell everyone that earning a gold medal won’t be easy because the captain of the squad is past his prime certainly seems like a bizarre choice.

No one would care about that Embiid interview if he was delivering for Team USA. Unfortunately, he’s been quite clearly the worst player on the roster. He was awful in the showcases, and looked lost against Serbia yesterday. Steve Kerr somehow has the guts to hand the best player on the NBA champion Celtics a DNP, but can’t bring himself to bench Embiid.

So, I have a solution for Joel’s four fellow starters. Just give him the ball and let him go to work on every single possession to open each contest. If he passes it, throw it right back to him. One of three things will happen, and it’s a win-win-win for the team.

Possibility #1: Embiid dominates, and the US jumps out to a big lead.

Possibility #2: Embiid gets the opposing bigs into early foul trouble, and strengthens Team USA’s size advantage.

Possibility #3: Embiid is terrible, and Kerr has no choice but to insert Anthony Davis and actually play his best lineup.

I literally see no problem with this blueprint. You can even tell Joel that the plan is to feed him nonstop out of the gates. What is he going to say? No, I don’t want the ball. I think he’d happily agree to this course of action, and it might even keep him engaged throughout the whole game.

A superstar that has never made the conference finals is an inherently easy target for NBA Twitter roasts. Embiid is desperate to escape the narrative that he folds on big stages, but the guy is currently proving all of those skeptics right. I’m rooting for Joel, but he needs to wake up immediately if he wants a gold medal.

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