Joel Embiid Postgame Funny Water Poured on Him

'Funniest guy I've met in my life': Sixers reminisce on favorite Dario Saric memories

Lloyd Pierce has a team of his own to worry about now, but when the former Sixers assistant coach was informed last week that Dario Saric would soon return to Philadelphia for the first time since being traded in November, he quickly offered an unprompted prediction.

"I think Dario is going to shoot about 30 times when he comes back here next week because I can tell you, he'll be pissed," said Pierce, now coach of the Atlanta Hawks.

Competitiveness was an important part of Saric's two-plus seasons as a Sixer. He wasn't as talented as Ben Simmons or Joel Embiid, which was ultimately why the Sixers were willing to part with him in the Jimmy Butler deal.

But Saric — who's in town tonight with his Minnesota Timberwolves to play the Sixers — had the ability to energize both his teammates and the crowd with a single play. How about the time he dove to the floor and, like a volleyball player, directed the ball to Simmons for an easy dunk all in one motion?

After his prediction, Pierce laughed and proceeded to tell a story from January 2017, Saric's rookie year. James Harden lit the Sixers up that night in the same manner that he lights up everyone else. Houston used ball screens against the Sixers' switching defense to secure Harden a favorable mismatch. On this night, Saric was the target.

"He ends up switching onto James Harden over and over and over again," Pierce said. "And I think Harden ended up with 50. (Editor's note: It was 51.) And he's shooting step-back jumpers. And Dario is just raising his hands at me and the bench the whole time like, 'What do I do? What do I do?' And he comes to a timeout and he says, 'I don't know what to do, we don't have those kind of players in Europe.' And we said, 'We don't have those kind of players here either. He's a different guy. Sorry, I can't help you.'

"But he's pissed at us, he's pissed at himself and he's mad that James Harden is someone he's never seen before. But that's kind of Dario's humor. He's an intense guy, he's hard on himself."

Saric comes back tonight with the Sixers missing a few things in his absence. (Former Sixer Robert Covington, also exchanged in the Butler deal, is reportedly out for the Wolves with a bone bruise.) We have talked ad nauseam about how trading two rotation players for Butler has hurt the Sixers' depth. Saric was poor from beyond the arc earlier this season while still a Sixer, but his 3-point shooting was critical for the league's best big-minutes five-man unit last season.

Inside the locker room, Saric's absence also means less laughter. Pierce calls Saric one of the funniest players in the league, but T.J. McConnell takes it a step further: "He's the funniest guy I've ever met in my life, ever."

The way McConnell explains it, the main reason he found Saric to be so funny is that, well, he didn't try to be. Take the time that he poured water on Saric during an on-air post-game interview:

Dario Saric drops an F bomb after T.J. McConnell pours water on him. https://t.co/nCr2CyMCom

— Brandon Lee Gowton (@BrandonGowton) January 8, 2017

"That's the thing, he said the f-word on national television but he didn't mean to," McConnell said. "And then after the game, he starts 'Trust the Friendship.' It's just stuff like that, he's so funny and he's such a good person, too."

McConnell said he tries to text Saric and ex-Sixer Timothé Luwawu-Cabarrot (now on the Thunder) at least once a week. About an hour before the first bus left for road games (3 p.m. usually), it was well documented that those three would grab coffee with player development director Chris Babcock and occasionally Embiid.

Dwayne Jones, the former St. Joe's standout and NBA player, now works as a player development coach for the Sixers. Standing at 6-foot-11, one of his jobs is to defend players as they go through pre-game warmups and practice drills. At one practice last season, Saric believed Jones was faking an injury.

"We're doing a finishing drill and he goes up and came down before I did. I ended up tweaking my ankle on his," Jones said. "And he thought I was joking. And I was legitimately hurt. He was like, 'Haha, what are you doing? Get up. Haha.' And I was just laying there grabbing my ankle. It took him a minute.

"And then he felt bad the entire practice, asking how (Jones) was doing," Babcock said.

Babcock might know Saric better than anyone in the organization. He traveled to Europe multiple times during the two years Saric played for Anadolu Efes. He visited Saric in Croatia during the offseason and became impressed by the residents' simple, relaxed lifestyle by the sea. Babcock, who grew up in Minnesota because his father worked in the Timberwolves' front office, can offer occasional advice on how to handle his new city.

Dario Saric (left) and Markelle Fultz in September. (Bill Streicher / USA TODAY Sports)

One of Babcock's favorite Saric memories came during one of his first trips to Istanbul.

"They were winning the game, he missed a shot and he literally ripped his jersey," Babcock said. "Mad at the time and then he kind of smiled afterward."

After he came over to play for the Sixers (contrary to popular belief at the time!), Saric had to learn to deal with the team's substitution patterns. When he would be subbed out on the heels of a bad play, Saric often would come back to the bench and curse in his native tongue.

"We don't even know what those words mean but Joel would start saying that instead of swearing, T.J. would," Babcock said. "A lot of the players started using Croatian."

Embiid, as you might imagine, enjoyed Saric, his former warm-up partner. When asked about Saric after Sunday's win over the Knicks, he said, "That's a funny dude. Just around the locker room, he was a fun dude."

Would Embiid say that there's less humor in the locker room without Saric?

"Oh yeah, for sure. There's a big hole. There's someone missing. He brought that and we definitely miss that."

(Top photo: Issac Baldizon / NBAE via Getty Images)

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Source: https://theathletic.com/768374/2019/01/15/funniest-guy-ive-met-in-my-life-sixers-reminisce-on-favorite-dario-saric-memories/

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