The Philadelphia 76ers rolled out a superteam this season with Joel Embiid, LeBron James, Jaylen Brown, and Tyrese Maxey — so of course, rumors and chatter followed. Recently, broadcaster Mike Breen claimed during a broadcast that Embiid showed up late to practice and got chewed out by James. Both James and head coach Nick Nurse quickly shot that down. After the Sixers lost a preseason game to the Brooklyn Nets on Friday (Taiwan time), Embiid finally broke his silence on the whole mess.

　　"It sucks, but what can you do? It's really unfortunate. I don't know where that came from — go check it out yourselves, because it never happened," he said with a shrug.

　　He stressed the team needs to block out the noise: "We’ve got to focus on ourselves. There’s gonna be a lot of outside stuff trying to divide us, keep us from doing what we’re supposed to do. So we’ve got to stick together, keep our heads down, and keep grinding."

　　Embiid’s career has been a magnet for criticism — his conditioning, his style, you name it. Breen later apologized publicly, saying if LeBron says it’s not true, he believes LeBron. But for Embiid, it’s still a gut punch.

　　"One thing keeps running through my mind: 'Why me?' I really don’t get it," Embiid said. "First of all, it’s not true. But then I think, 'Why me?' I guess because I’m Joel Embiid. This has happened before, and I usually don’t say much about it, so I guess I’m an easy target. As long as we know who we are, we’ve got to stay tight."

　　After the off-court drama and a preseason loss, the 76ers are set to face the Boston Celtics on Saturday. The team just wants to shake off the distractions and get ready for the real season.