NBA Draft Rumors: Joel Embiid’s agent won’t give all teams medical reports?
By Bryan Rose
While Joel Embiid is no longer likely to be the No. 1 pick in the 2014 NBA Draft, it’s very possible he could still land within the top ten (although there are a few pundits who believe he’ll fall completely out of the lottery). Given that, there are plenty of teams who are interested in the big man but agent Arm Tellem seems to be playing hardball.
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According to Jeff Goodman, Tellem is only giving Embiid’s medical reports to certain teams, likely in effort to prevent Embiid from being drafted into a poor situation.
“Joel Embiid’s agent, Arn Tellem, is controlling which teams get medical info on his client in order to steer Embiid to certain teams.”
The line of reasoning here is this – if a team can’t see what type of issues Embiid is dealing with over his broken foot, they’re less likely to draft him. It’s a good tactic from Tellem and completely fair, despite it feeling a little dirty. Of course, it won’t stop teams from drafting Joel Embiid completely as there may be a rogue general manager out there who is willing to take a chance on the former Kansas product without seeing full medical disclosures, though that does seem a little unlikely.
Injuries to the feet of big men have put careers on hold (Brook Lopez, for example) or completely swallowed them up (Yao Ming) so there is understandable concern about Embiid’s future in the NBA, which is why so many teams are clamoring to get his most recent medical documents. Tellem, however, isn’t exactly making it easy.