We’ve done our best to tamper hopes and expectations of Joel Embiid‘s first NBA season. But what about the possibilities that he is as good as the brochure? Let’s dare to dream together.
He was selected with the third pick of the 2014 NBA draft. A top prospect player on the mend, Joel Embiid found himself playing for the Philadelphia 76ers, an NBA team which was also on the mend. The 20 year old Cameroon center had suffered lower back strain and a broken foot in his one season of playing basketball with the Kansas University Jayhawks, and he was expected to be a full year in rehabilitation. But early on, the Philadelphia 76ers saw an aurora of elite in his infectious laughter, his playfulness, and the physicality of a young 20 year old 7′ 0″ 249 pound who had little formal training with the sport of his eventual profession, but whose instincts and aptitude for the fundamentals seem to align with his physical measurements.
In short, it was as though the young man was engineered to play basketball.
But from the moment of his selection, he was a man of above average needs in order to realize his potential. His body was not adequately trained in the sport of basketball, and his foot surgery was simply an unavoidable result of his tall stature starting and stopping at rates far in excess of the limits he was built to endure. The president and general manager of the Philadelphia 76ers, Sam Hinkie, recognized the special needs of his new franchise center and began to shape the organization to deliver on that promise. While head coach Brett Brown was called upon to train center Nerlens Noel to play the power forward position, Hinkie had already begun the year long recruitment of the world leader in the field of sports medicine and sports science, Dr. David T. Martin. It would be Martin’s task, once hired, to bring the best of both science and medicine to heal and train the young man.
Days before the 2015 NBA draft, the Philadelphia 76ers learned of the regression of Joel Embiid’s injured foot. The team had already committed to his start in the 2015-2016 season, and so the June news of the need for a second foot surgery derailed plans to move Noel to the four spot, and forced the team to revisit their own draft board. While luck did not favor the Sixers in the 2015 draft, no protected first round picks from either the Los Angeles Lakers, the Miami Heat, nor the Oklahoma City Thunder conveyed, the team was fortunate in that they fell to the three pick once more, and their projected selection, point guard Russell D’Angelo, instead went to the Los Angeles Lakers at number three. And so, with Karl Anthony Towns and Russell off the board, the Philadelphia 76ers picked the best player available, Duke center Jahlil Okafor, at number three.
Next: Okafor Outplays Offensively