Joel Embiid and Ben Simmons are in Atlanta, but aren’t at the All-Star Game at State Farm Arena after it was learned that their barber back in Philadelphia tested positive for COVID-19. As such, the two were removed from the game as a result of contact tracing and tonight’s games will be played with 11-man rosters as a result of them being late scratches — Embiid was a starter for Team Durant and Simmons was a reserve for Team LeBron, so the only shuffling needed was moving Zion Williamson into the starting lineup.
On Sunday night, Embiid was watching the game from his hotel room in Atlanta as he deals with quarantine rules, and as he watched the intros he couldn’t help but notice how many players came out with fresh haircuts, the thing that led to his removal from the rosters.
Looking at those fresh shape-ups and I had to be the one pic.twitter.com/BESWmi01XV
— Joel “Troel” Embiid (@JoelEmbiid) March 8, 2021
It’s a pretty funny observation from Embiid, and it’s not a surprise that he’d make jokes through this. The obvious hope is that he and Simmons continue to test negative over the next week, and for now it seems spirits are high at least with Embiid even with him being unable to play in Sunday’s All-Star Game. If nothing else, him watching the game live on Twitter will surely provide some funny running commentary.