Joel Embiid signs a 3-year, $193 million contract extension with the 76ers

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Joel Embiid signs a 3-year, $193 million contract extension with the 76ers

2024-09-21 01:11 Last Updated At：01:21

PHILADELPHIA (AP) — Already an NBA MVP and an Olympic gold medalist, All-Star center Joel Embiid now has until the end of the decade to try to win his first NBA championship with the Philadelphia 76ers.

With another maximum contract secured, Embiid wants to chase that title in Philly — and remain a Sixer for the rest of his career.

“Philadelphia is home,” Embiid wrote on Instagram.

A seven-time NBA All-Star, Embiid and the 76ers agreed to a $193 million extension with a player option for the 2028-29 season, a person familiar with the deal said. The person spoke to The Associated Press on condition of anonymity because the terms have not yet been announced.

The 30-year-old Embiid, who graduated from a Florida high school and played a season in college at Kansas, broke his own news early Friday morning when he posted a photo on Instagram of him signing a contract alongside team owner Josh Harris.

“I want to be here the rest of my career. I love this community and everything you've given me and my family,” Embiid wrote. "There is a lot more work to do. You guys deserve a championship and I think we're just getting started.”

Embiid, who dropped a franchise-record 70 points last season against San Antonio, signed off with the familiar 76ers hashtag, “#trusttheprocess.”

Embiid — still in the second year of a $196 million extension he signed ahead of the 2021 season — became the third cornerstone player this offseason to sign a massive contract with the 76ers. The team hasn't won an NBA title since 1983.

The 76ers enticed Paul George to leave the Los Angeles Clippers and sign a four-year, $212 million contract. The NBA’s Most Improved Player last season, Tyrese Maxey, was rewarded with a five-year, $204 million extension. The 76ers committed more than $400 million in salary to two players they believe position them as the top contender to dethrone the NBA champion Boston Celtics.

George and Maxey both congratulated Embiid on the extension on Instagram.

Throw in Embiid's deal and the Sixers are counting on a Big Three that can contend for the life of their contracts. Embiid, though, has a history of injuries and has yet to lead to the franchise out of the second round of the Eastern Conference playoffs. Embiid has never played more than 68 games in a season and averaged 34.7 points in just 39 games last season.

Originally selected by the 76ers with the No. 3 overall pick in the 2014 NBA draft, Embiid was named NBA MVP in the 2022-23 season and he won a gold medal with Team USA at this year's Paris Olympics.

He has five All-NBA Team honors, seven consecutive All-Star selections from 2017-24, three All-Defensive Team nods, and twice has been the NBA scoring champion.

"Joel has cemented himself as one of the greatest Sixers of all time and is well on his way to being one of the best players to ever play the game. We’re ecstatic that this extension keeps him and his family in Philadelphia for years to come,” Harris said. “Joel is a great family man, leader, and person. He is an elite two-way player with a combination of size, strength, and athleticism that this league has rarely – if ever – seen. He is integral to this franchise’s quest for another NBA Championship, and we are honored that he continues to choose this organization as his NBA home.”

In 433 games (all starts) with the franchise, Embiid has averaged 27.9 points on 50.4% shooting, 11.2 rebounds, 3.6 assists and 1.7 blocked shots across 31.9 minutes per contest. He ranks first in franchise history in scoring average (27.9 points per game), fifth in blocked shots (720), tied for sixth in triple-doubles (seven), and seventh in total points scored (12,071). Embiid also ranks third on the franchise list with eight 50-point games.

“I had no idea when I was drafted as a 20-year-old kid from Cameroon how lucky I was to be in Philadelphia,” Embiid said in a team statement. “Through all the ups and downs, this city and the fans have been everything, and I am so grateful for how they’ve embraced me.”

A youth soccer player, Embiid didn’t pick up a basketball until he was a teenager in Africa, when a friend informed him that very few 7-footers succeed in soccer.

A few months later, Embiid was lured to a basketball camp in the capital of Yaounde run by NBA veteran Luc Mbah a Moute, one of just two players from Cameroon to have played in the NBA. Mbah a Moute persuaded Embiid’s parents to let him move 6,000 miles to Florida, and helped enroll him at Montverde Academy, one of the best high school programs in the country. He played just 28 games in his lone season at Kansas before leaving for the NBA.

Embiid missed his first two full seasons with injuries before settling in as one of the top big men — and richest players — of his generation.

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Former Harrods boss Al Fayed was a 'monster' who abused young women, lawyers for his accusers say

2024-09-21 01:11 Last Updated At：01:20

LONDON (AP) — Mohamed Al Fayed, the former boss of Harrods, was a “monster’ who raped and sexually abused young women, lawyers representing dozens of his accusers said Friday.

The abuse went on through much of Al Fayed's 25-year tenure — from 1985 on — at the helm of the world-renowned London department store, the lawyers said. They spoke at a televised news conference in London in the wake of the BBC documentary “Al-Fayed: Predator At Harrods.”

The four-member legal team told reporters they have been retained by 37 of Al Fayed’s accusers and were in the process of adding more clients, including potentially from other organizations that Al Fayed was involved with.

In the documentary, which was broadcast on Thursday, the Egypt-born Al Fayed who died last year at the age of 94, was accused of raping at least five women at his properties in London and Paris and of committing scores of other acts of assault and physical violence, both in and outside of Harrods.

“We will say it plainly: Mohamed Al Fayed was a monster,” said lead lawyer Dean Armstrong. “But he was a monster enabled by a system, a system that pervaded Harrods.”

Armstrong said the case combined “some of the most horrific elements” of cases such as those involving Jimmy Savile, Jeffrey Epstein and Harvey Weinstein — well-known and powerful men who were able to avoid sexual abuse allegations for years before their victims finally came forward.

Some of Al Fayed's accusers were teenagers at the time of the abuse, with at least one as young as 15, according to the BBC documentary.

London's Metropolitan Police have said they were made aware of allegations in the past and had questioned Al Fayed in 2008 in connection with the sexual abuse of a 15-year-old but prosecutors at the time did not take the cases forward.

There was also no comment from Al Fayed's family.

One of Al Fayed’s accusers spoke at the news conference. She was identified only as Natacha and said the billionaire businessman was “highly manipulative" and "preyed on the most vulnerable, those of us who needed to pay the rent and some of us who didn’t have parents to protect them.”

Natacha, who said she joined Al Fayed's team of personal assistants at the age of 19, recounted being invited to his private apartment one night “on the pretext of a job review.” When she arrived, she said she saw the bedroom door partially open with sex toys in view.

“I felt petrified. I perched myself at the very end of the sofa and then … Mohamed Al Fayed, my boss, the person I worked for, pushed himself onto me," she said.

After kicking herself free, she said Al Fayed threatened her.

“He laughed at me," she said. “He then composed himself and he told me, in no uncertain terms, that I was never to breathe a word of this to anyone and that if I did, I would never work in London again and he knew where my family lived.”

"I felt scared and sick,” she added.

In the United Kingdom, victims often identify themselves by only one name to protect their privacy. It wasn’t clear why Natacha gave only one name while appearing before cameras, or if that was her real first name.

The Associated Press does not identify victims of sexual assault unless they have come forward and voluntarily identified themselves. The team of lawyers could not immediately be reached for comment.

Al Fayed moved to Britain in the 1960s, after early investments in shipping in Italy and the Middle East, and started building an empire.

At the height of his wealth, he owned the Ritz hotel in Paris and the southwest London soccer team Fulham. He moved in high circles in London but was never knighted. He became a prominent conspiracy theorist after the Paris crash that killed his son Dodi and Princess Diana in 1997.

Al Fayed sold Harrods in 2010 to a company owned by the state of Qatar via its sovereign wealth fund, the Qatar Investment Authority.

In a statement to the BBC, the Harrods owners said they were “utterly appalled” by the allegations of abuse but added that they were only made aware of them last year.

“While we cannot undo the past, we have been determined to do the right thing as an organization, driven by the values we hold today, while ensuring that such behavior can never be repeated in the future," the owners said in a statement.

Armstrong dismissed Harrods' claim that the owners knew nothing of the sexual allegations made against Al Fayed over many years, citing several media reports in recent years over allegations of sexual misconduct on the part of Al Fayed. The BBC documentary said at least one of the women had signed a non-disclosure agreement.

“We are here to say publicly and to the world, or to Harrods in front of the world, that it is time that they took responsibility," Armstrong said. "That is something they should do as soon as possible.”

U.S. lawyer Gloria Allred, who has represented victims in some of the most notorious sexual abuse cases in recent years, including those about abuse by Epstein, Weinstein and Bill Cosby, also spoke and lambasted the culture at Harrods during Al Fayed's tenure.

“Harrods is often referred to as the most beautiful store in the world … many women dreamed of working there," she said. "However, underneath the Harrods glitz and glamour was a toxic, unsafe and abusive environment.”