Joel Embiid confronted claims he was opposed to the Philadelphia 76ers bringing in Tyronn Lue by saying he had "nothing to do" with the process of hiring coaches.

The 76ers were seeking a new leader after Brett Brown was fired in the wake of their 4-0 loss to the Boston Celtics in the first round of the Eastern Conference playoffs.

They plumped for Doc Rivers, whose appointment was announced in early October, but not until after looking at other candidates.

Among those was Lue, yet reports have claimed Embiid had objections to him coming in, with The Athletic pointing to tactical reasons and the sense that Lue had connections to fellow 76ers superstar Ben Simmons.

Embiid was asked about the report and said: "You've got to control what you can. I just try to come in every single day and do my job. These guys have put a lot of trust in me to make it happen.

"Those types of decisions, I'm not a GM [general manager], I'm not in the front office so that has nothing to do with me."

The 26-year-old Embiid told US reporters in a video call: "I've always told them that they've got to do whatever is best for the team so if they thought Doc was the right coach for us, then, I trust them.

"If they didn't think any of the other candidates were not the right choice for us, then I trust them. I'm sure that they did the background check.

"All I'll say is that we had a lot of great candidates, all of them are great. Ty, he's won a championship. I think we were looking at Mike D'Antoni who was an assistant coach with us and then Doc came in the picture so I thought the choice they made could have gone either way. Either of them would have been great for this team."

Lue went on to be named head coach of the Los Angeles Clippers in late October, succeeding Rivers who resigned in September after a 4-3 series loss to the Denver Nuggets in the Western Conference semi-finals. He had previously served as assistant to Rivers with the Clippers.