Philadelphia 76ers: Don’t blame Joel Embiid and James Harden for being fouled

New Philadelphia 76ers teammates Joel Embiid and James Harden have a lot of things in common.

Both are multiple-time All-Stars, do-it-all offensive weapons, and have spent the bulk of their careers as the best player on their respective team. Harden and Embiid are elite ISO scorers, have savvy offensive minds, and are more than willing to get their teammates involved as playmakers too.

But do you want to know what else the duo have in common that isn’t as universally lauded? Free throws; Embiid and Harden combine for an average of 19.3 trips to the charity stripe per game, and some folks aren’t too happy about their style of play.

But, like, why? Are free throws not a part of the game? Do Joel Embiid and James Harden not draw contact when trying to shoot the ball?

The Philadelphia 76ers should embrace their new free throw-heavy identity.

Joel Embiid gets fouled… a lot.

According to NBA’s advanced analytics, Embiid draws 8.5 personal fouls per game, which is just .1 fewer than Giannis Antetokounmpo. While Embiid averages .2 more attempts and 1.2 more makes than “The Greek Freak” in any given contest, if games were officiated to the letter of the rules, he would average even more trips to the line.

Why? Because Embiid draws contact basically every time he touches the ball and sometimes before it even comes his way by overly aggressive coaches looking to blitz the most dominant paint scorer since Shaq.

According to NBA Court Optix, Embiid is double-teamed on 14.5 possessions per game, which ranks seventh association-wide behind Luka Doncic, James Harden, Ja Morant, Shai Gilgeous-Alexander, Giannis Antetokounmpo, and, weirdly enough, Fred VanVleet. Embiid is double-teamed on roughly 32.5 percent of his offensive possessions, and if you ask me, that number seems rather low when compared to the gold old-fashioned eye test.

If it’s hard enough for one player to mirror Embiid without making contact while he’s in the act of shooting, imagine how hard it is for two defenders to do so, especially when facing off against a savvy scorer who knows a thing or two about drawing contact.

Now sure, does Embiid ham it up from time to time for the Zebras? Oh, you bet, Embiid’ll throw up some garbage when he knows a whistle is coming to get some points the easy way, but if you can compare the junky fouls he draws versus the calls he should draw, his average free throw attempts would likely be even higher.

And as for Harden? Well, the same could be said for him too.

While Harden only draws double-teams on 28.4 percent of his offensive possessions, because he only touches the ball 9.2 more times than Embiid in any given game, his 17.3 double-teams per game rank second association-wide behind only Luka Doncic. Despite being a 6-foot-5 slasher, Harden draws an average of 5.9 fouls per game and averages the eighth-most free throws per game, which is tied for third association-wide alongside DeMar DeRozan.

If it wasn’t for Harden’s signature stepback 3, a move that has been somewhat declawed by the association’s new officiating rules, “The Beard” would be universally lauded for his calculated style of play and for having one of the biggest bags of tricks the NBA has to offer.

But instead, the dynamic duo now affectionately known as “Embeard” will draw ire from fans the association over for their foul-drawing ways together Voltron-style on the Philadelphia 76ers.

I don’t know about you, but I’m all for it.

Call them whistle hunters, call them villains, heck, even call them the “Millennial Bad Boys;” it really doesn’t matter. If the NBA wants to make it even harder to draw fouls next season than they did this season, that’s one thing, but for now, the Philadelphia 76ers’ two best players are going to do their thing and put major points on the board, even if a healthy percentage of them come not from the field but from the line.