Five-time Sixers All-Star center Joel Embiid admitted that he considered quitting basketball entirely during his rookie year, per Keith Pompey of the Philadelphia Inquirer. Embiid was drafted by the Sixers in 2014 with the third pick out of Kansas, but didn’t suit up for Philadelphia until the 2016/17 season. Surgeries for a navicular bone in his right foot delayed Embiid’s NBA debut for two years while he grieved the death of a family member off the court.
“You look back at my first year after the surgery,” Embiid said. “Obviously, I lost my brother at that time, too. Going back to Cameroon, I really wanted to stop playing basketball and really retire because at that point you just had surgery, and everybody is talking about ‘You’re not going to make it’ or ‘You’re never going to play in the league,’ and, obviously, the loss of my brother was big. I wanted to give up. I almost did. It was hard.”
The 28-year-old has since become one of the most dominant centers in the NBA, and is currently building a convincing MVP case with a terrific and mostly healthy season thus far. He is averaging 29.6 PPG, 11.2 RPG and 4.5 APG through 46 games this season. Embiid boasts shooting splits of .495/.369/.813.
There’s more out of the Atlantic Division:
- While the identities of four Sixers starters are fairly clear heading into the home stretch of the 2021/22 NBA season, the team has several options for the fifth starting role, per Kyle Neubeck of the Philly Voice. With James Harden, Tyrese Maxey, Tobias Harris and Embiid entrenched in the club’s starting lineup. Neubeck considers whether they’d be best complemented by the defensive attributes of Matisse Thybulle, the corner three-point shooting of Danny Green or Furkan Korkmaz, or the size advantage of Georges Niang.
- With a 25-34 record, the Knicks face an uphill battle to even make the play-in tournament this season. Fred Katz of The Athletic wonders at what point second-year New York head coach Tom Thibodeau, whose job may be in jeopardy this summer, may opt to prioritize developing the team’s youth over less-than-meaningful victories. Katz also theorizes about the potential markets awaiting 2022 unrestricted free agent center Mitchell Robinson, and forward Cam Reddish, whom the Knicks could either opt to extend this summer or allow to reach restricted free agency next year.
- Nets team president Sean Marks expects stars Kevin Durant and Ben Simmons to join the team on the hardwood fairly soon, writes Brian Lewis of the New York Post. “Depending when they go, we’ve got to see how they respond to days like [Tuesday], and we’ll go forward with this,” Marks said. “It’s probably going to be tough, to be honest, to be playing in the next three or four days. But we’ll see how it all plays out.”
Who’s going to stop Embiid….in the words on Keith Sweat…NOBODY
Embiid will stop Embiid… re read this article
Embiid cannot stop talking about himself. Who’s gonna be the one to tell him there is only 1 ball…
that’s what you get out of the comments he makes?
He’s not wrong. Embiid has always struck me as a bit of a wiener. I thought he was hogging the ball during the all star game and was visibly upset when it became clear Curry would be the MVP instead of him.
He was killing Jokic
What? In an all-star game? Ok.
CMac- I always thought Joel was a bit whiny as well for lack of a better word, or maybe the ideal word
But there was never any denying the talent, and he’s red hot this year and a complete Beast
You know what they say….When the Beast is hungry, ya feed him
The stage will be his soon
I hear ya on a level but I think it’s actually good in this instance with Joel.
He feels his time is Now, like right Now, and it JUST might be as these next 2 yrs could be the best shot at a ring he has for the rest of his career.
He probably has a shorter life span left than most NBA superstars and that Philly Ledger could potentially look really nasty here by mid decade
This is the aggressive Euro style “All In” poker play here. Can’t say we all won’t be tuning into Philly games come playoffs every single night this year. There going to be a real tough out if healthy
I’m hoping Thybulle starts. We will need his lock down ability with the other 4 starters, Embiid can over cover so much at the rim and is still needed on offence so it has to be Thybulle.
Then off the bench we can play really exciting three point shooting line ups like Shake Green Korkmaz Niang and WCS. 4 snipers and WCS chasing the boards. Defensively this group would be solid too, Shake has great size, Green can defend still, Korkmaz is tidy for a back up wing, Niang holds his own most the time too.
Allow this group to get some cohesion together and watch us get quick 10 point leads with our second unit.
Another terrible take.
That bench unit is awful.
Clearly you don’t watch 6ers ball then.
Niang has been great, Shake when fit and healthy is very good, Green and Korkmaz make solid 3 and D wings and then WCS isn’t great down low but I’ll take it. We also have Paul Millsap and a bunch of young guys trying to get minutes like Joe, Bassey and Reed.
I wouldn’t expect to see that unit on the floor for many minutes a game, if at all. They have 2.5 stars, one should be on the court at all times
Yeah I didn’t really mean all on the floor at once but as in let Thybulle be apart of the starters and this group be the second unit and obviously when they play line ups will be a mix of all sorts but have clear roles for each player on the two units
Yep. no championship for you.
I feel like Maxey should come off the bench, no? He is so talented, so give him control of the second unit. Otherwise Milton becomes backup pg, and Maxey becomes more of spot of shooter during Harden & Embiid playing. You obviously know your team best, but that bench unit still needs a player of Maxey’s caliber to succeed imo.
I do see what your saying but I think the fact Maxey is super efficient and doesn’t need the ball a lot of the time helps him.
He almost shoots a 50:40:90 and only takes 13 shots a games for his 17 points. A lot of his main scoring plays are also open threes or driving inside off a screen or hand off and either putting up a floater or getting to the rim. Three plays which don’t require him having to take to many touches or have the ball for to long. It’s not like he needs to iso up, crossover three guys with his handle to create space for his jumper. Or spend 10/15 seconds trying to back people down for turn around jumpers. Having Harden come obviously will reduce the amount of shots and touches he takes but the fact he doesn’t need many touches or shots to be effective means he stays a starter.
Thibs is going to start developing younger players? News Flash. Has nobody learned anything about the man in all these years? ROTFLMAO!
Embiid’s dominance under Doc’s coaching reminds me of T-Mac’s seasons under Doc. His play book must say “Pass the Ball to [insert superstar name here]” for every play. Big stats, happy delusional fans, no championship.
How is that relevant to unclemike’s comment?
I didn’t mean to ‘reply’. I was commenting on the article not unclemike
In fact, I agree with unclemike. Thibs is terrible developing young players. Known as defensive strategist he should only be an assistant. How does he win COY awards?!? D-Rose got him the first one, and last year was a NYC mercy trophy for a fluke season. He’s never been a good head coach. Poor rotations. Poor locker room. Just because he got hired doesn’t mean he’s a good head coach; after all it’s the Knicks who hired him. Weren’t J Kidd and Mr Big Shot available to coach? They would’ve been better picks. Heck they could have given Ewing a crack at head coach. I would have rather that then another dysfunctional coach with no future upside.