NBA Fines Joel Embiid $10K for Saying "Fuck LaVar Ball" on IG

There's no real reason to track all of LaVar Ball's bullshit. He's gonna talk shit, and we're all going to hear about it one way or another, and it won't really mean anything in the long run. But there appears to be a wrinkle in the fabric, as this latest episode with Joel Embiid proves.

So Ball and Embiid have been beefing for the past couple of days, because I dunno. Who really knows? It all kind of started when Embiid subtweeted at Ben Simmons, not-so-subtly asking him to dunk on an unmentioned Lonzo Ball "so hard that his daddy runs on the court to save him," which, you know, is whatever. Then Ball hit back, saying Embiid wasn't a playoff-contender and blah and blah and blah.

Anyway, Embiid took to Instagram Live and fielded a question about Ball, saying, quite plainly, "man, fuck LaVar Ball." Check it out—it's fun:

LaVar, of course, fired back, and some time passed, which is all pretty inconsequential. But then the NBA decided that they didn't take too kindly to Embiid's F-you, and slapped the man with a $10,000 fine, which is pretty dumb in every respect:

But what we're presented with here is a kind of conundrum that takes the form of a one-way street. Because LaVar Ball, who is getting media attention for God-knows what reason, isn't in the NBA. He can't get fined. Ball can just sit on the sidelines and provoke players to the point that they have nothing else to say besides, "Man, fuck LaVar Ball," which is what any sensible person—a potty mouth or not—would say. But this warning shot sent out by the NBA means that we could just be sitting back, watching a one-way feud from Ball to anyone, really play out until our eyes bleed. Delights.

Needless to say, $10,000 is a lot of dough. At least for Embiid, he can walk away after paying that money, feeling good about the fact that his fine is more than Ball ever earned in his non-existent NBA career. Silver linings.