Philadelphia 76ers: Joel Embiid’s December gets some national love

What must it be like to be a fan of a Western Conference team and only see Joel Embiid play twice a year?

I mean, as Philadelphia 76ers fans, watching the Big Fella run the break, Eurostep past defenders, and spin around for a fadeaway J has become almost commonplace, but for, say, fans of the Portland Trail Blazers, Los Angeles, or the team’s most recent foe, the Houston Rockets? Well my goodness, Embiid might just be the most uniquely impressive away player you see all season.

Fortunately, the NBA has midseason awards to give flowers to players who are putting in work and their teams on their back.

That’s right, despite missing the vast majority of the previous month and still not being 100 percent by his own admission, Joel Embiid has been named the Eastern Conference Player of the month for December, and that, my Philadelphia 76ers friends, is fantastic news that is very well deserved.

The Philadelphia 76ers found a good one in Joel Embiid.

As crazy as it may seem in hindsight, drafting Joel Embiid was not a universally lauded slam dunk for the Philadelphia 76ers.

The 7-foot Cameroon native was relatively new to the game of basketball, had a

charming

polarizing off-court persona, and, most crucially of all, was coming off of a single season at Kansas that was plagued by injury. Between a stress fracture that cost him the final frame of his lone season in Lawrence and a broken navicular bone in his right foot that required pre-draft surgery, some wondered if Embiid’s basketball career would even make it to 2021, let alone what condition he’d be in some seven years into the future should he last that long.

If you fell into the “Embiid will never play” camp as the setbacks started stacking up year over year, you probably felt pretty good about yourself at least until 2015, when the player who would go on to personify The Process took the court and the NBA by storm.

Though his season was limited to 31 games, which, apparently isn’t enough to qualify for Rookie of the Year honors in the eyes of some, Embiid burst onto the scene with incredible efficiency, putting up 20.3 points and 8.3 rebounds in 25.4 minutes of action a night. Embiid built on those strong performances in 2017-18, playing alongside presumed long-term partner in crime Ben Simmons, and became a fixture of the All-Star game as a result. His 3 point shooting percentage improved, as did his overall scoring, and in 2021-22, Embiid further expanded his game out even more, becoming the team’s top facilitator while dropping his turnovers to a career-low of 2.7 on 71 touches per game, which is the fifth-highest total among all centers in the NBA.

But wait, it gets even better. As improbable as it may sound, Embiid has become the NBA’s premier closer in the clutch, with 24 more points scored than the association’s next leading player, DeMar DeRozan. While the Sixers would still be wise to find a primary ball handler to pair up with Embiid in clutch situations, as he too often has to go to work outside of the restricted area, when Embiid has the ball in his hands in the final few minutes of any quarter, there’s a better than not chance he’ll put points on the board one way or another.

While DeRozan has undoubtedly been great and has transformed himself from a player dubbed the biggest bust of free agency to a borderline All-Star starter, Embiid has been the best player in his conference over the month of December, so winning the honor from the NBA feels both incredibly well deserved and energizing.

After being deep in the MVP conversation in 2021, don’t be surprised if Embiid is there yet again in 2022, too.

30.6 points, 10.9 rebounds, 4.2 assists, and 1.2 blocks per game on 49.5 percent shooting from the field, 39.1 shooting from beyond the arc, and 84.5 percent shooting from the line. Those are MVP-caliber numbers folks, especially when you factor in effective efforts and clutch scoring. While only time will tell if Joel Embiid will ultimately come away with the grandest title in his sport, it’s clear the faith of both Sam Hinkie and Philadelphia 76ers were as justified in 2014 as they were today. Trust the Process and good things tend to happen.