It isn’t really an NBA season until there’s drama in Philadelphia.
To name a few instances of dysfunction with the 76ers, the franchise dealt with public trade requests from Ben Simmons and James Harden, had many strange injury situations between Joel Embiid and former No. 1 pick Markelle Fultz, let Jimmy Butler leave for Miami and then give Tobias Harris and Al Horford big contracts, and even had a general manager burner account scandal.
Now, as the team has hopes to finally get past the second round of the playoffs for the first time since Embiid was drafted, there’s even more drama.
ESPN’s Shams Charania reported Tuesday that after a 2-11 start to the 2024-25 season, Philadelphia held a team meeting in which guard Tyrese Maxey challenged Embiid. Charania’s source in the story had details about the team meeting, yet was unnamed, prompting fans on social media to speculate on who the source was — and leading some fans to believe that head coach Nick Nurse leaked the information.
Could it have been Nurse who fueled the ESPN report on Philadelphia’s team meeting? Here are the details on why some fans jumped to that conclusion.
MORE: What did Tyrese Maxey say to Joel Embiid in the 76ers’ team meeting?
Did Nick Nurse leak Tyrese Maxey calling out Joel Embiid?
In Charania’s report, a source that was “involved in the meeting” told him that “Tyrese loves Big Fella, but this is the elephant in the room,” regarding Maxey’s challenge for Embiid to be on time for team events, which has impacted the locker room.
The phrase “elephant in the room” helped fuel some speculation from NBA Twitter. Nurse, who was the Raptors’ head coach for five seasons and led Toronto to an NBA championship in 2019, has apparently used that phrase pretty often.
found the leak pic.twitter.com/D45W2zQioh
— raptor moments (@raptormoments) November 19, 2024
Of course, there’s no way to confirm who the source of Charania’s story was, but it naturally would have had to be somebody close enough to the team that they knew what was said in Monday’s team meeting in Miami. Players and coaches would make the most sense as sources, as they were directly participating in the exchange.
Another fan pointed out that in a past NBC Sports Philadelphia story, it’s explained that Nurse said on Danny Green’s podcast in 2018 that he had a mini elephant on his desk in Toronto, which metaphorically helped him prevent obvious concerns within a team from growing before being addressed.
“One of the things I’ve noticed — with any team, but particularly in the NBA — was a lot of times there were issues or problems,” Nurse said on the podcast, per the NBC Sports story. “We’re not talking about serious things here, but there’s some little problem or whatever. But everybody knows that if we talk about it, this player’s going to get offended or that coach is going to get offended, so everybody just kind of swallows it, hopes that nobody brings it up, and then we can get out of here. … It doesn’t let us address our issues very well.”
lol Nurse has an elephant on his desk to remind the team of the “elephant in the room” https://t.co/9QusIr5d4A pic.twitter.com/cYscmrs2Bb
— Anderson Hooper (@lesterfreamon) November 19, 2024
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There are surely elephant-sized signs that Nurse leaked the information about Maxey challenging Embiid, although they may be a stretch. However, hypothetically, Nurse releasing the information could have been a method of his to inject a new focus and fire into his team after a dreadful 2-11 start.
We may never know if the “elephant in the room” connection between Nurse and the report on Philadelphia’s team meeting is true, but based on the investigation of some fans on social media, the 76ers’ head coach can’t be ruled out as Charania’s source.