Joel Embiid is paying attention to all that has been said. While the Philadelphia 76ers are not really in the business of being too mindful of the outside noise, those conventional distractions could actually be useful, if only to motivate the team to silence their naysayers and prove them wrong this season.
After the kind of season they turned in during the previous campaign, the 76ers have become a frequent target of those loosely flying bullets from fans and pundits alike. However, criticisms are not synonymous with blatant disrespect, and there is no doubt that the team has caught way too many strays as of late, both as a collective and with reference to players as individual pieces.