Philadelphia 76ers star Joel Embiid is not one to show much sympathy when he leads a player into a technical foul. The known troll is one of those players who will get in a player’s head and when they get a technical foul, he enjoys it.
However, in Tuesday’s win over the New Orleans Pelicans, Embiid got into it with guard Jose Alvarado. They were both assessed double technical fouls and with it, comes a fine from the league.
Embiid stepped up and paid Alvarado’s fine which he revealed Embiid did to the New Orleans media. After a win over the Los Angeles Lakers, Embiid explained why he paid his fine, but he also didn’t expect it to come out like that.
“I wasn’t expecting that to come out, but I felt bad for him,” said Embiid. “We played against the Pelicans and I watch a lot of basketball. Any time I’m not doing anything, I’m always watching other games and stuff, and I just like his energy. He plays hard, he competes, even when he picked up the tech, he wasn’t backing down.”
Embiid went on to say how much he respected Alvarado as a competitor and that was a big reason why he stepped up.
“It was just regular trash talk,” Embiid added. “Two guys going at each other on the court, but he didn’t back down, and I respected him. I like that about him so after the game, I really just went up to him and I told him to keep fighting and to keep it going.”
Also, Alvarado is on a two-way contract. He will make $462,629 in the 2021-22 season while Embiid will make $31.6 million. He wanted to step up and help Alvarado rather than have him pay the fine himself.
“The other part, I felt like he’s on a 10-day? (He was informed that Alvarado was signed) oh, he just got signed? Great,” the big fella finished. “Great, so I just felt like that’s the least I could do because I made him pick up the tech and he obviously doesn’t make as much as a lot of guys in the league. I just felt like that was on me and I didn’t want him to lose that money because I’m sure we all need it.”
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