The Philadelphia 76ers are being careful with their biggest star, which has rubbed some people the wrong way.

Embiid has yet to play in this young season, his first after signing a three-year, $193 million contract extension, and there has been controversy surrounding his health and availability.

Embiid and the Sixers have been open about his “load management,” both saying it would be unlikely Embiid would play both ends of games on back-to-back nights to preserve his health.

A Philadelphia Inquirer column this week about the controversy was headlined, “Sixers plan to sit Joel Embiid early and often. They should give fans refunds for games without him.” The writer, Marcus Hayes, called Embiid “Mr. 46 Percent” since he’s played in 46% of regular season games since being drafted in 2014. Hayes also described the arrangement as “fraud.”

But when he’s been on the floor, Embiid’s been one of the most dominant forces in the league. He could have won back-to-back MVPs had he stayed healthy last season.

Embiid was asked Friday about how he felt about his usage, and he took it as an opportunity to respond to his critics.

“It was never decided. Like I said, everybody has been on the same page. If your body doesn’t react well and your body tells you one thing, I’ve done it,” Embiid said. 

“From what I can tell you, I’ve broken my face twice. I came back early with the risk of losing my vision. I had broken fingers. I still came back. So, I’m not gonna sit here and be like, when I see people saying ‘he doesn’t want to play.’ I’ve been through way too much. I’ve done way too much for this city and putting myself at risk for people to be saying that. So, I do think it’s bulls—.

Joel Embiid of the Philadelphia 76ers reacts during the fourth quarter against the New York Knicks during Game 4 of the first round of the Eastern Conference playoffs at the Wells Fargo Center April 28, 2024, in Philadelphia.  (Tim Nwachukwu/Getty Images)

“Like, that dude, he’s not here. Marcus whatever his name is. I’ve done way too much for this f—ing city to be treated like this. So, I’ve done way too f—ing much. But, like I said, I wish I was as lucky as other ones, but that doesn’t mean that I’m not trying and I’m not doing whatever it takes to be out there, which I’m gonna be here pretty soon.”

The NBA recently fined the Sixers $100,000 due to public statements made about Embiid’s health at the start of the season. The league conducted an investigation into the 76ers after Embiid missed the team’s opening game against the Milwaukee Bucks, which was reportedly a formality due to its player participation policy for nationally televised games. 

Joel Embiid of the Philadelphia 76ers shoots a free throw during a game against the San Antonio Spurs Jan. 22, 2024, at the Wells Fargo Center in Philadelphia  (Jesse D. Garrabrant/NBAE via Getty Images)

While the NBA found the 76ers did not violate that policy, it did discipline the team for public comments that did not properly reflect Embiid’s knee issues. The league did conclude that Embiid is dealing with a “left knee condition.”

Fox News’ Scott Thompson contributed to this report.

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Jaden Jefferson let the glee of victory overtake his face as the clock expired. He grinned ear to ear. Winning wasn’t easy Friday night.

The Cathedral quarterback remembered the feeling of struggling as a young team a year ago. And while trailing St. Paul at halftime, that sinking sensation began to creep in.

“I’m talking to [my teammates] on the sideline, all day,” Jefferson said about trying to build momentum despite managing just a field goal in the first half and giving up a touchdown. “I’m just motivating, pushing them. You just got to go.”

He needed to turn the Phantoms’ tide, shift first-half disappointment into second-half success and channel the signal-callers who came before him. Eight years ago, future No. 1 NFL draft pick Bryce Young — a small, dual-threat quarterback himself — helped Catheral take down St. Paul en route to a league crown.

Now, it was Jefferson’s turn. Alongside his uncle, first-year Cathedral coach Vincent Jefferson and his father, offensive coordinator Jabari Jefferson, Jaden continued his sophomore stardom Friday night. His two touchdown passes and 201 all-purpose yards led Cathedral to a scrappy, 16-14 Angelus League title-clinching victory over St. Paul — the Phantoms’ first league title since 2018.

“I’m just extremely excited,” said Jaden, who has 32 total touchdowns. “We worked all year for this. We worked to win the league. Now, playoffs, CIF championships, here we come.”

St. Paul coach Mike Moschetti entered Friday with a goal: He needed to stop Jaden from controlling the game’s flow.

Moschetti made it work, at first. The Swordsmen (6-4, 4-1) slowed the game and had two nine-minute drives to enter the second half ahead, limiting the Phantoms to three drives in the half. However, Cathedral’s second-half adjustments allowed them to take control. Jefferson threw for touchdowns of 10 and 55 yards in the half, lifting Cathedral (9-1, 5-0).

“They were controlling the clock a lot in the first half,” Jefferson said. “We had to go in halftime, make some adjustments up front [and] try to slow them down a little bit to get our dynamic offensive ball back.”

St. Paul made mistakes — the Swordsmen had four personal fouls, including three in Cathedral territory. Despite this, the Swordsmen were in contention to win until the very end.

Junior quarterback Gabriel Castaneda, who scored two rushing touchdowns against Cathedral, drove to the 15-yard line to set up a potential winning field goal — a drive that included a 25-yard completion, his longest of the night.

As kicker Jesse Riperto lined up for a 32-yard attempt, the Cathedral sideline stood quiet.

Riperto’s kick sailed wide left. The game was over.

“That’s not that kid’s fault,” Moschetti said. “In the second half, they put it to us offensively. They shut us down.”

Jefferson darted to his teammates on the field as the ball missed the uprights. The slog of the first half was history and all that mattered was now.

He was an Angelus League champion.

Steve Schnur can’t sleep. He calls it a blessing and a curse. 

In pursuit of the next great sports video game soundtrack, Schnur scrolls social media in the middle of the night, discovering new music and sending it to his colleagues who have long gone to bed.

That’s how he found Lola Young.

Swiping through Instagram one morning last November, Schnur, the president of music at Electronic Arts, came across Young’s raspy, soulful voice. “Holy … you know what,” he thought, and immediately texted Cybele Pettus, EA’s senior music supervisor.

Two days later, they attended a rooftop party in Los Angeles where three emerging musicians performed for a crowd of industry veterans. Out walked a young British woman with long dark hair, choppy bangs and nose rings. The same singer-songwriter Schnur had texted Pettus about at 3 a.m. 

“We literally fell in love with her,” Pettus said. “She was just so engaging, so interesting, such a storyteller with her music. We went right up to her, told her how much we loved her set — which was like three songs — met her manager. She was very recently signed at the time to a label … I don’t even think her record was done.”

Schnur and Pettus wanted her for EA Sports FC 25, the latest edition of the wildly popular soccer game. Young doesn’t play video games or follow sports outside of watching the World Cup. But she knew it was a big deal. Her song “Flicker of Light” is nestled among 117 songs from artists in 27 countries.

“It’s interesting because it’s quite a male-dominated game, but there are loads of women who play it. It’s exciting to me that I’m going to be in the game because I’m a female artist doing my thing,” Young said. 

Not all tracks emerge from serendipitous rooftop encounters. But Schnur’s path to Young is emblematic of the modern effort to build a quality, fresh video game soundtrack.

To curate such an expansive collection of varied tracks requires an ear for what will be the next breakout song rather than merely having a finger on the pulse of what already is topping charts or going viral on TikTok. At EA, Schnur challenges his team to a musical scavenger hunt with a rule: don’t listen to the radio or any major outlet where music is played. 

“I don’t want the influence of what is today to influence what will be in the next six months,” Schnur said. “You can’t title a game ‘Madden 25’ and have it sound like 2023. It has to be, by a matter of design, a place of discovery, a place that cements what the next year ahead is going to sound like. A place where the sport itself will be a part of this sound.” 

To achieve this, Schnur and his fellow songseekers scour the globe for fresh tracks. They attend concerts of up-and-coming artists, take suggestions from current athletes and field submissions from the biggest names in the industry. 

Everyone from Green Day to Billie Eilish and her brother/producer Finneas want to know what they have to do to be featured in the wildly popular video games. In the former’s case, that meant playing “American Idiot” on acoustic guitars for Schnur to lobby for its placement on Madden 2005. In the latter, Schnur got to hear Eilish’s new album “Hit Me Hard and Soft” before it was finished because the nine-time Grammy winner wanted to be in FC 25. Eilish’s “CHIHIRO” appears in the game.

Album sneak peeks and concert tickets are perks, but the job also comes with some pressure. Curating a video game soundtrack means creating a playlist that millions will hear — over, and over, and over. Avid gamers will remember the music for better or worse. And the best ones are remembered even decades later, when a song immediately conjures memories of a game and a time and place.

The teams responsible for piecing together the soundtracks are well aware that their work will live on as virtual time capsules once a current game is superseded by a future iteration, but they strive for the initial experience to be an introduction to new sounds instead of a recognition of old favorites. 

“The sound of the NFL to a 20-, 25-year-old is very different than their parents because their associated tone with football comes from Madden,” Schnur said. “It does not come through broadcasts or live football games. It comes from the virtual experience. With that comes an enormous responsibility of getting it right and knowing that you’re defining the sound of the sport going forward.”

That’s something David Kelley, the director of music partnerships and licensing at 2K, considers when selecting songs for the NBA2K franchise.

“The most important part for us is that we want it to be future-facing, always. We want it to sound like something you’ve really not heard before,” he said. 

One artist 2K tabbed for its 2025 installment, released Sept. 3, was as future-facing as it gets.

In June, 310babii, an 18-year-old rapper from Inglewood, Calif., collected his high school diploma and a platinum plaque for his hit single “Soak City (Do It)” on the same day. An avid 2K player, he jumped at the opportunity to secure a coveted spot on the soundtrack. He wrote and recorded “forward, back,” a basketball-inspired track, exclusively for NBA2K25 and hopes to hear it when the game shows replays of LeBron James dunking on other players.

Much in the way that Millennial gamers equate Madden 04 with Blink-182 and Yellowcard or hearken back to the Tony Hawk Pro Skater soundtrack, 310babii associates the NBA2K installments of his childhood with the artists featured.

“For me, 2K16 is one of my favorites. When I was in fifth grade, I remember DJ Khaled having the craziest songs on there. That’s what made that game special to me aside from the gameplay itself,” he said. “For a 10-year-old kid, my song could be that for him.” 

At EA and 2K, the process for scoring a game begins the day after the previous edition launches. Figuring out how the songs flow together to establish a vibe is just as imperative as choosing the individual tracks. 

“You’re kind of like a DJ in a club. You can be having a great set, then if you play one song that feels out of place, you’ll lose the whole audience and you’ve got to build that trust back,” Kelley said. “It’s something we take very seriously.” 

Nailing an authentic sound means molding the soundtrack to fit the sport. That doesn’t necessarily mean zeroing in on a particular genre, though hip-hop, rap, R&B and pop tracks are frequent choices, but it does mean keying in on what athletes and fans are listening to. Kelley said Milwaukee Bucks point guard Damian Lillard and Phoenix Suns forward Kevin Durant even send songs or artists for consideration.

For MLB: The Show, finding the right vibe can mean looking to players’ walk-up songs for inspiration. Ramone Russell, PlayStation’s director of product development communications and brand strategy, said they’ve tried to lean more into the different cultures and ethnicities represented within the sport.

“We’ve started to have more Latin music, more reggaeton, some bachata. We have to do that if we’re being accurate to the source material,” he said. “We’re making a Major League Baseball game based off of something that’s real life. If in real life 40 percent of the players are Latin, and the music that they listen to on average is Latin, our soundtrack should probably have some Latin music in it.”  

The team putting together the MLB: The Show soundtrack receives about 50 albums per day from labels and publishers hoping to land an artist’s track in the game, PlayStation Studios director of music affairs Alex Hackford said in an email. Along with partners at Sony Music, Hackford sends ideas to Russell’s team, which then decides what fits on the game’s base soundtrack.

The team also curates a specific set of music for the game’s “Storylines” mode, which allows gamers to play out narratives from baseball history. The songs for the “Storylines” mode that centered on the Negro Leagues were chosen solely by Russell, with the intention of expressing the more somber aspects of baseball’s history through music.

“That’s not necessarily a happy story to tell, but what we try to focus on here is what these men and women accomplished despite the racism and the Jim Crow.” Russell said. “We don’t shy away from the ugliness that’s in this story, but we celebrate what these men and women accomplished despite those things. ” 

That’s particularly evident with the introduction of Toni Stone, the first woman to play regularly in a men’s major league, into MLB: The Show 24. 

“When we decided we were going to do Toni Stone, the first song that came to mind was ‘It’s A Man’s Man’s Man’s World’ by James Brown. I’m like, ‘This has to be her intro song because it is perfect. The nuance is there. It’ll just get people into the right mindset for the kind of story that we’re telling.’ Because it is still very much a man’s world, and it was very much a man’s world back then,” Russell said. “But as James Brown said, it wouldn’t be anything without a woman. There’s that duality there that really helps tie everything together.”

Through each new video game released year after year, these soundtracks weave across sports and through time to become cultural touchstones. The songs bind the gameplay experience to moments that go beyond scoring virtual touchdowns or blasting animated home runs. 

“Nobody remembers that unique piece of gameplay that came about in 2009,” Schnur said, “But everybody remembers the music.” 

(Illustration: Meech Robinson / The Athletic; Photos: Kevin Mazur, Sean Gallup / Getty Images)