i don't care if embiid played or not at the end of the day.

i just think it's a HIGHLY unlikely a MVP caliber player skipped a game out of a FEAR of a player on the opposition and i'd be saying that if you substituted Hakeem, Tim Duncan, etc for Jokic.

these are some of the most confident people on earth. irrationally at times. that's not to say they don't have fears, lol, but that it'd be about having to play against a guy just rings off as really odd. and, even for guys who have admitted they were sort of scared of playing against someone (like playing against Mike for instance)? those guys STILL played if they were healthy.