From the sounds of things, former NBA power forward Charles Oakley has lost respect for Philadelphia 76ers center and reigning league MVP Joel Embiid.
Oakley, a renowned tough guy who put brought serious "power" to the forward position, apparently thinks that Embiid is doing too much whining during the Sixers' first-round series against the New York Knicks, Oakley's former team.
"Everybody says he's hurt," Oakley said on SiriusXM NBA Radio's The Starting Lineup, via Stefan Bondy of the New York Post. "If you're hurt, stay home and watch it on TV like everybody else is doing. I don't want to hear this, 'I'm giving it my all.' You're a 7-footer shooting 3s. I mean, you stand out around the 3-point line what are the guards gonna do? So I think that, you know, they cry too much. All these guys in the league cry too much. He's too big to be crying. I'm sorry I said about two years ago, he could be the next Wilt Chamberlain. I don't know. He could be the next Dunkin Donut or somebody because he just cry."
For the record, Embiid has spent his entire career with the Sixers — and never advanced beyond the second round of the playoffs. Earlier in the series, when the Sixers were down 2-0, he predicted they would come back to win, saying that Philadelphia was "the better team."
It sure didn't look like through four games, when the Knicks held a 3-1 series lead.
Oh, by the way, Embiid also complained that Knicks fans who made the trip to Philadelphia for Games 3 and 4 were louder than Sixers fans. He may have been right.
But the Knicks sure loved it.
Either way, Oakley is one man who clearly would like to see more winning, and less whining, from Embiid and other modern-day bigs.
