The USA Basketball team delivered a series of standout moments in their commanding 122-87 victory over Brazil, securing a spot in the semifinals of the Paris Olympics. One of the highlights was an exuberant celebration by Joel Embiid, which drew attention for its boldness. Richard Jefferson took to Instagram to express his surprise, clearly taken aback by Embiid’s audacious display.
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Embiid had his best performance of the 2024 Summer Games, recording 14 points and 7 rebounds in merely 12 minutes of game time. Despite his impressive outing, JoJo went viral on social media for a completely different reason.
Towards the dying end of the 1st half, Embiid connected a tough and-1 to help the USA take a 52-36 advantage. The 2023 NBA MVP celebrated the play by impersonating the famous WWE group D-Generation X’s iconic DX Chop. While A’ja Wilson seemed to be surprised by the Philadelphia 76ers leader’s actions, Snoop Dogg seemed to have gotten hyped up.
Joel Embiid with the DX chop after his And-1 followed by Snoop Dogg absolutely loving it…
If this isn’t America, I don’t know what is pic.twitter.com/iYosJ4EiYX
— Josh Reynolds (@JoshReynolds24) August 6, 2024
Richard Jefferson, the 2016 NBA champ, had a disgusted face when reacting to the same incident. Along with the clip being captioned, “Ain’t no way he did this at the Olympics”, Jefferson seemed to be in disbelief.
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Embiid isn’t the only member of this star-studded USA team to pull off the DX Chop during the 2024 Summer Games. Anthony Edwards has also been seen doing the same celebration numerous times throughout the campaign.
Earlier, both these players have been in the limelight for doing the same during an NBA season. Embiid has even had to pay for the inappropriate gesture. At one point in the 2022-2023 season, the center was slapped with a $25,000 fine. The price of this fine increased to $35,000 when Embiid repeated the offense at the beginning of the 2023-2024 season as well.
The following was released by the NBA. pic.twitter.com/Rzp9vXCxhP
— NBA Communications (@NBAPR) October 31, 2023
Ant-Man also made this obscene gesture during the 2024 postseason. But the referees didn’t penalize the Minnesota Timberwolves guard for the same. However, the entire basketball world was almost convinced that Edwards would have to forfeit $35,000 similar to Embiid. Luckily, the NBA overlooked the youngster’s actions and didn’t fine him.
With the FIBA being unable to fine players, we can expect Embiid and Edwards to continue doing this celebration during the final two games of the 2024 Olympics as well.
