NBA Star Index: Joel Embiid should forget MVP; Jalen Brunson has Knicks humming into February

Tyrese Haliburton should be furious at load-management grifters

Welcome back to NBA Star Power Index: A weekly gauge of the players getting the most buzz around the league. Inclusion on this list isn't necessarily a good thing -- it simply means you're capturing the NBA world's attention. This is also not a ranking. The players listed here are in no particular order. This column will run every week throughout the regular season. "I think it's a stupid rule, like plenty of the guys in the league, but this is what the owners want, so as players, we gotta do our job and play in 65 games if we're able to," Haliburton said. "So, that's what I gotta do, take care of my body to be able to play in those games, and I think you're seeing other players in the league kind of face the same thing. As long as the owners are happy."

For anyone who bought into the conspiracy theory that Embiid was, and has long been, ducking Nikola Jokic when he sat out at Denver (again) on Saturday, was he so committed to the bit that he also sat out Monday against the Blazers? What, now he's afraid of Deandre Ayton, too?

Embiid wasn't. and never has been, ducking Jokic. That's dumb. The guy's knee is legitimately hurt, and his health situation could have gotten worse on Tuesday when Embiid went down during Philadelphia's loss to the Warriors after getting tangled up with Jonathan Kuminga, suffering another apparent injury as Kuminga fell on his leg. Embiid left the game from there and did not return.