Philadelphia 76ers: Is Joel Embiid or Nikola Jokic more of a forward?

Folks, we live in a society… where two centers can’t both be first-team All-NBA.

I know, crazy, right? In a world where DeMar DeRozan was a backcourt All-Star starter despite playing 85 percent of his time at power forward according to Basketball-Reference, two of the five best players in the NBA can’t be recognized as such because of a silly rule made not by God but man that would force voters to move one player to forward, instead of simply having two backcourt spots and three frontcourt spots.

Seriously, we could very well see a day in the not-too-distant future where the association MVP could find himself on the All-NBA second team because some voters chose to vote him in as a center, and others opted to call him a forward.

Crazy? Yes. Dumb? Definitely, but unless someone swoops in and rights this wrong waiting to happen, we’ll have to watch in horror as the NBA (potentially) prepares to screw Joel Embiid out of a first-team All-NBA spot for the second straight season.

So, if the NBA won’t preemptively make things right if for no other reason than to avoid the scorn of a legion of Philadelphia 76ers fans the world over, why don’t we put on our old thinking caps and try to figure out which player, Joel Embiid or Nikola Jokic, is more of a forward because there’s just no better way to deal with this issue.

Is Joel Embiid secretly the Philadelphia 76ers’ best forward?

Alright, so the most obvious way to determine which center, Joel Embiid or Nikola Jokic is actually a forward is to check to see how many minutes each player has logged at the five spot versus the power forward position so far in 2021-22 (according to Basketball-Reference).

Nikola Jokic: 0 minutes.

Joel Embiid: 0 minutes.

… rats.

Okay, well, how often has either player been tasked with sharing the court with another center? Does either end up defending on the wings while another 7-footer is occupying the paint?

In a word? No. Outside of a few minutes – roughly nine – that Embiid spent playing alongside Andre Drummond, most notably against the Orlando Magic and the Minnesota Timberwolves, he’s exclusively played the center spot alongside traditional forwards, as has Jokic, who has yet to take the court with his tallest teammate DeMarcus Cousins.

Sidebar: Remember when Cousins said Embiid would be the best big in the NBA when he retired? That was funny.

Alright, how about post ups? Everyone knows Jokic has a weird offensive game that’s more LeBron James than Hakeem Olajuwon; surely Embiid laps his Western Conference rival many times over, right? Nope, Jokic actually posts up .2 more times per game – on 23.5 more touches per game – and scrores five points per game on said plays, which is second in the association behind, you guessed it, “The Process.”

Rebounds? Both average double-digits, with Jokic having a slight edge at 13.5 to Embiid’s 11.3 Blocks? Embiid’s putting up 1.5 per game versus Jokic’s .9. Goodness, the duo are both even ranked one and two in Total Raptor rating according to FiveThirtyEight, which is a hotly contested stat but is noteworthy nonetheless.

The takeaway? Both players are very good, and very much centers. If the NBA wants to hold one of them off of the first team All-NBA list because of semantics, the only person they are hurting is themselves… and history… and the best player on either the Philadelphia 76ers or the Denver Nuggets.