The headlines about Joel Embiid’s cryptic comments made on Thursday at the UNINTERRUPTED Sports Film Festival took nearly four days to arrive — an eternity in this modern media landscape.

But when they did, with the Sixers star seeming to signal discontent by discussing the possibility of winning a title somewhere other than Philadelphia, it didn’t take long for speculation about what it all might mean to commence. Some media outlets played it straight, while others hinted at the possibility of larger, more dramatic implications. The Philadelphia Inquirer’s Marcus Hayes, meanwhile, took the reigning MVP to task for exuding a “Leadership deficit.” From there, you knew it wouldn’t be long before the betting sites chimed in because, well, it never is.

As I was writing this, in fact, an email from one such establishment popped into my inbox.

“Embiid trade odds has 8 teams listed…”

Yet for the sake of fairness to Embiid and the Sixers, let’s not crank up the hyperbole machine quite so quickly. Instead, we’re going to stick to the exact words that caused all of this commotion.

“I just want to win a championship — um, you know, whatever it takes,” he told UNINTERRUPTED CEO/LeBron James business manager Maverick Carter. “I don’t know where that’s going to be, whether it’s in Philly or anywhere else. I just want to have a chance to accomplish that. I want to see what it feels like to win that first one and then think about that next one. It’s not easy, but it takes more than one or two, three guys. You’ve got to have good people around you, and myself, you know, every single day I work hard to be at that level so I can produce and make it happen.”