LeBron James Denies He Called Out Joel Embiid for Being Late: 'Stop the Lies'

LeBron James has used his own Instagram account to kill a story about his new teammate. During Monday’s preseason broadcast, announcer Mike Breen relayed a secondhand anecdote claiming James had let Joel Embiid “hear it” for arriving late to a Philadelphia 76ers practice. On Tuesday, James reposted the story with a cap emoji and a denial: “He ain’t been late so stop the lies,” the New York Post reports.

What was actually said on the broadcast?

Less than the clip suggested. Breen framed it as something passed on to him, telling viewers: “I had somebody tell me before the game that they were out ready to practice, and Joel Embiid walked out onto the court a couple of minutes late, and LeBron let him hear it,” the New York Post reports.

Every load-bearing detail was missing. No named source, no date, no specific practice, and no indication Breen had checked it with either player. It was colour commentary built on a single anonymous retelling, delivered during Philadelphia’s preseason opener against the Knicks, and it was clipped and circulating within hours.

What exactly did James deny?

The foundation, not just the scolding. James did not say the conversation was exaggerated or taken out of context; he said the lateness at the centre of it never happened. “He ain’t been late” removes the premise, which is why the denial landed as a correction rather than a rebuttal, HoopsHype reports.

He also made the correction himself, on his own Story, rather than through the team or a friendly reporter. That choice is part of the story: in a preseason that has already seen Dillon Brooks and John Collins separated inside five minutes, the league’s biggest name handled his version of events at the source, in public, within a day.

Does anything else support James’s version?

His own on-record comments from a few days earlier do. Speaking about Embiid’s camp before the opener, James said the difference from their 2024 Olympics summer was that Embiid was far healthier, that he “hasn’t missed a practice” and had been in nearly everything the team had done, Fadeaway World reports.

Beat reporting pointed the same way. Kyle Neubeck of PHLY Sports, cited in coverage of the denial, wrote that everything he had heard about Embiid through camp had been universally positive: early arrivals, extra workouts, full participation. None of that proves a negative about one unnamed practice, but the only attributed, checkable accounts in circulation describe a player who has been early, not late.

Why did a two-minute anecdote become a locker-room story?

Because of what it implied about the new hierarchy. James signed with Philadelphia this offseason, and the open question of his first season there is how a 41-year-old newcomer and an established franchise player share authority. A story about James policing Embiid’s punctuality in week one answers that question in the most dramatic way available, which is exactly why it spread, and exactly why James moved to close it down.

The pattern is familiar from the other social-media row of this preseason, when Sophie Cunningham told A’ja Wilson to grow up and claimed a double standard: the quote travels first, and the context spends days catching up. This time the subject of the story supplied the context himself, which is rarer, and faster.

What did Nick Nurse say on Wednesday? (Update, October 7)

The team’s answer arrived at practice. Update, October 7: head coach Nick Nurse addressed the report in Camden and stuck up for Embiid, saying he was surprised by it because Embiid has “been excellent,” is in great shape, has been on the practice floor and has played great, Sixers Wire reports. Nurse said he had not heard or read the broadcast anecdote himself and was only made aware of it after practice, and that the squad has already talked about managing outside noise. It is not a denial of Breen’s words so much as a character witness for the player at the centre of them, and it lines up with James’s own account of an ever-present Embiid.

What did Mike Breen say when he responded? (Update, October 7)

He apologised. Later on Wednesday, Breen told ESPN he was disappointed at how the story was interpreted, that his whole intent had been to praise James for already raising the team’s professionalism, and that the anecdote came from someone he trusts, the New York Post and TSN report. He said the identity of the team-mate had been meaningless to him, that in hindsight he should have realised naming Embiid is what made it a story, and that he feels awful it put the focus on Embiid.

His closing line settled the record: he does not know why the person who told him the story would make it up, but if James says it never happened, he believes him and apologises for putting it out there, the New York Post reports. NBC Sports, summarising the same ESPN comments, notes Breen’s apology arrived after Nurse’s defence of Embiid, which means every party to the story except Embiid himself has now publicly lined up behind the same version: the lateness did not happen.

What did Embiid himself say? (Update, October 9)

The last outstanding response arrived on Thursday night. Update, October 9: after the preseason loss to the Nets in Brooklyn, Embiid addressed the report himself for the first time, Sixers Wire reports. He said it had never happened, that he did not know where it came from, and that the episode had left him asking why it was aimed at him. He described himself as an easy target who does not normally talk about such stories, and said the team’s answer was to stay together and keep its head down against outside noise.

That completes the set. The player accused denied it, the team-mate accused of policing him denied it, the coach backed the player, the broadcaster apologised, and now the subject himself has said on the record that the lateness never happened. Every named party to the anecdote has publicly rejected it.

What happens next?

Every response is now in: Embiid’s was the last one outstanding, and it landed on Thursday night. MSG has not added anything beyond Breen’s own comments.

Embiid’s own preseason debut in Brooklyn on Thursday supplied the next one within hours, when he fell into new team-mate Jaylen Brown in the first quarter and Brown stayed down holding his right knee before playing on. The basketball resumes immediately, and this league’s preseason has form for manufacturing storylines out of single moments, from Scottie Barnes receiving the first push-off call under the NBA’s new emphasis to Luka Doncic crossing Domantas Sabonis out of his shoe in the Lakers’ opener to the Brooks technical and a broadcaster hired and fired on the same day in Portland. With Breen’s apology on the record and Embiid’s own denial now added to it, the live part of this story is over.

The regular season gave James a broadcast moment of his own within a fortnight. In his 76ers debut at Madison Square Garden on October 20, an NBC microphone caught him accusing the Knicks of getting a championship whistle on their ring night, a complaint the level free-throw count did not support and the 106-100 win rather undercut.