Why Joel Embiid Is The Most Promising Center In The NBA

Even though he’s essentially still in his “rookie” season, Joel Embiid is clearly the most promising center in the NBA right now

Philadelphia 76ers  fans already know that Joel Embiid is an absolute animal. However, most of you NBA fans actually have a life, so you aren’t going to waste hours of it watching the Sixers.

But before you all jump on the Embiid bandwagon in the near future, allow me to summarize why he is so damn good.

When you take a quick glance at Embiids’ stats they are impressive, but not mind boggling. He’s averaging 18.4 points, 7.4 boards, and 2.4 blocks per game. Pretty good for a rookie, huh? What you’re probably missing is the fact that he’s putting up those numbers in only 24.2 minutes per game. 

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The most overlooked and important statistic in basketball is a players averages per 36 minutes. Obviously, when a bench warmer occasionally plays  5-10 minutes a night, this stat can be inflated and irrelevant.

But when a player is consistently playing between 14-28 minutes, it’s a very strong indication on what he would do if given more playing time.

Is it fair to compare Embiid’s stats with Karl-Anthony Towns’ when Embiid is only playing 68 percent of Towns’ minutes per game?

No, of course it isn’t. So what are Embiids’ numbers per 36 minutes? 26.6 points, 11 boards, and 3.5 blocks.

And don’t forget, he is shooting an incredible 41 percent from three-point range. Pretty impressive for a 7-foot center that weighs 250 pounds, isn’t it? So, are those numbers “not bad for a rookie” or “not bad for an All NBA team center”?

You be the judge. Embiid is achieving all of this on the lowly Sixers while drawing double teams for much of the game.

He has a full arsenal of skills that he consistently puts on display and quite frankly, makes NBA vets look downright silly. From spin moves, post moves, ball fakes, pull up jumpers, three-pointers, and hook shots, there isn’t much opposing defenders can do.

Oh yeah, and his jab step is just dirty. Seriously, his jab step is more lethal then Mr. Miyagi equipped with a pair of chopsticks. I would give him the clitche comparasion of being a “guard trapped in a center’s body” but that wouldn’t do his game any justice.

While he does have impressive ball skills, he possesses elite post skills as well. I don’t feel like reaching into my bag of adjectives in order to heap more praise on Embiid, but if I had to sum up his game in one sentence I’d say this: Embiid’s game right now = 6x(“Embiid is a BADDD man”-in Stephen A smiths voice-)⁴⁰   

Joel Embiid’s success is truly a beautiful story. I have to  admit, I thought he would never play in the NBA because of the broken navicular bone in his foot. His first two seasons were even more concerning than Greg Oden’s.

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Oden played a total of 82 games in his first two years. Embiid played ZERO and had TWO surgeries on the same foot. It’s hard to know when one of these enormous athletes with dinosaur limbs will have career-ending injuries, but lets hope Embiid can hold up for the long haul.

Brett Brown and the Sixers management deserve credit for the way they have managed Joel Embiid’s playing time.

They have already rested Embiid nine games this year and are limiting his minutes in order to make sure he stays healthy.

If he can stay healthy,  the Sixers will have two future superstars to build their team around -Embiid and Ben Simmons.

Simmons is the type of player that makes everyone around him better and should flourish… scratch that…WILL flourish alongside Embiid. If they can get a couple of good guards through the draft and free agency next year, they may even make the playoffs.

Besides being an elite talent, Embiid is a likeable guy and truly hysterical. I highly recommend you follow him on twitter, he is easily the NBA’s twitter MVP. Many of his epic tweets are too inappropriate to quote on here, but one which I can quote came right after Trump was elected as our president.

Joel Embiid is constantly poking fun at the sixers management about “trusting the process” with his sarcastic tweets and personally, I love it. But, you know what? I think he actually does trust the process.

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After two years of surgeries and everyone writing him off, he had to in order to make it this far. And while I may not trust the process when it comes to Trump’s America, I’m actually crazy enough to trust the process that Embiid and 76ers are going through.