Philadelphia 76ers: 5 Areas Where Joel Embiid Has Improved

Philadelphia 76ers big man Joel Embiid has yet to play an NBA game, but he has improved in five specific areas during his injury rehab.

Joel Embiid was taken with the third overall pick in the 2014 NBA Draft by the Philadelphia 76ers. By now, one who hasn’t paid attention to the NBA over the last few years should assume that the third overall pick has an established presence in the NBA, and is on his way to reaching his prime as a basketball player. Possibly, he’s on the verge of his very first All-Star season.

That assumption would be dead wrong, as Embiid still has yet to play a single NBA game.

Embiid came into the league with injuries, which is why the once projected top-overall pick dropped to three. Sam Hinkie — the general manger at the time — couldn’t help but pick him up, as the risk was high, but the return could be even higher.

The risk ended up being even higher than the Sixers knew at the time. More injuries were discovered, and he had to undergo foot surgery to repair a broken navicular bone in his left foot, sidelining him for what should have been his rookie season.

The following year, Embiid had a setback with that same foot injury discovered after the draft, and was put under the knife yet again, for another reparative surgery. He would miss his entire should-have-been sophomore season.

Now, we’re approaching what should have been his third NBA season, and Embiid has yet to play in a game. He is hopeful that he will see the floor this year, and return in time to play for Philly this season. His recovery seems to be going along well.

Throughout his recovery, he has been seen before games running drills, and videos have been put out online of Embiid working out. Here are five things that he has improved in his game, as well as in his personality throughout the two years he has sat out so far.

Next: Relationships

Relationships

It can be kind of tough coming into the NBA and making friendships and relationships when you aren’t even on the floor. A lot of players are friends off the floor and during the offseason. These relationships are ones that — with the help of cell phones and social media — occur across team lines.

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These relationships start after games when players are shaking hands and exchanging jerseys, and are capitalized on often during the All-Star weekend. Other things like Team USA basketball and trades help new relationships form or grow stronger.

During the All-Star weekend, players have a chance to take some time off from basketball and just hang out and have fun, often making long-lasting friendships. Since Embiid hasn’t been an active player yet, he’s been at a bit of a disadvantage.

Still, he’s made solid relationships, and capitalized on wanting to make more.

Last summer, TMZ spotted Joel having dinner with Washington Wizards guard John Wall. Embiid told TMZ then that he was “playing a lot of video games” as part of his injury recovery, but that’s beside the point. He was out to dinner with another player, from another team as well.

Embiid has also made plenty of relationships within the Sixers organization, especially with Nerlens Noel, and he seems to only be becoming stronger friends with everyone on the team.

Additionally, Embiid knows that relationships are what drives free agency at times, and has made it a point on Twitter to show that he wants big-name free agents to join the Sixers.

"Time to RECRUIT KD to the Sixers"

For a player that hasn’t played a single game in the NBA, Embiid has excelled in making connections with other players.

Next: Morale

Morale

The hardest part of any injury is often keeping one’s morale up throughout the recovery. When an NBA player has to sit out of work because of their health, it’s a pretty troubling situation. They are faced with wanting to play, but their body having limitations.

For a player like Embiid who has missed two straight seasons and faced a fair amount of setbacks, it’s got to be even tougher. The injury road for Embiid has been even longer than most other players, and he’s had to do things like take trips from Philadelphia to Qatar, which is not a short trip by any means.

All throughout the recovery period, we haven’t visibly seen the whole situation taking much of a toll on Embiid, which is surprising. Sure, he doesn’t smile all that often (but that’s just Embiid), but he does often show that he’s keeping his spirits high. When the right situation arises, we do see a smile break.

We see him fooling around with players before games, and we see him active on Twitter. Recently, he’s been on social media a lot, and he’s a very funny guy, especially when he talks about basketball and the Sixers in general.

While some think this comes across as immature, I find it to be something important. For a young player who has already faced a fair amount of adversity, it’s important to remain positive, something Embiid has done a good job with.

Next: Muscle

Muscle

This isn’t really something we’d expect from a player who has spent two years in injury rehabilitation, but Joel Embiid has really bulked up. When he joined the Sixers coming out of college, he was pretty big, but definitely not big enough to be considered dominant.

Looking at the progress Embiid has made in his upper body muscle, though, it’s clear that he’s hit the weights. Since Embiid’s injury was just on his foot, there were likely little to no limitations on what he could do as far as arm, shoulder, chest, and ab workouts, as long as they didn’t put weight on his foot.

Because of this, it looks like he was able to take advantage of a lot of spare time, and really bulk himself up. I mean, just look at this picture of Joel before he started playing basketball. It was a while ago, but still, it’s pretty crazy.

What this shows is that Joel really is just an all-around athletic person. He’s going to do whatever it takes to put himself in the best position to succeed, no matter what game he is a part of.

We know what Embiid was able to do in college at a fairly average strength level. Now that his arms and chest look massive, it’s crazy envisioning what he’s going to be able to do. One word comes to mind — dominance.

Next: Form

Form

One of the biggest things I’ve noticed about Embiid’s shot during pregame warmups is that his form seems to be getting better. I recently wrote a post evaluating three pregame Joel Embiid warmup videos, and in his warmups from last season, he looks a bit undisciplined with his form.

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When Embiid takes jumpers, he seems to go back and forth between a few different structures of his arm and shoulders, thus making it harder for himself to nail the muscle memory down. It’s pivotal for a player like Embiid to get that down before he has to take shots in real game situations, simply because it’s one less thing to think about.

If Embiid has to worry about making sure his form is good on top of defense trying to get in his head, he won’t be able to sink as many shots. If he is to get that muscle memory down now, though, his jumper will be like second nature to him in game situations, and he won’t even think about it.

That’s more what’s happened this year. As I noted in the video evaluation post, Embiid’s jumper looks more like Chris Bosh’s jump shot in videos from this season, which is good because Bosh has one of the best formed jumpers for a big man in the NBA today. Embiid’s elbow and shoulders are in the same place every time, and he gets in a rhythm when he’s taking jump shots.

When he gets in this rhythm, he sinks shot after shot, and the muscle memory is clearly developing. There’s reason to believe that Embiid has improved his form, especially comparing videos from last season to this season.

This in itself brings up a positive about Embiid. Since he didn’t play at all this season, and was spending time working on his game with no defense, he had time to discipline his shot and get that muscle memory down solid. If he didn’t have all the extra time due to injury, he may have struggled a lot this season.

Next: 3-point shot

3-point shot

Lastly, and this likely goes had in hand with the improved form of shot that Embiid has put into his skill-set, is his 3-point shot. Embiid will probably never be a heavy volume 3-point shooter in the NBA, but it will certainly help the offense if he’s able to nail a couple critical 3-pointers a game.

We’ve seen him go from hitting very few of his attempted long-balls to hitting several of his attempted shots. It seems as if over the last two seasons, improving his mechanics on his shot has allowed him to become a much better 3-point shooter.

I mentioned that Embiid’s mechanics remind me of Chris Bosh’s, but it would also be cool if Embiid could be a 3-point shooting big man just like Bosh is as well. I don’t see him being as good as Bosh is in that realm at any point, but it’s been good to see him make improvements beyond the arc over the last few years.

He could definitely become an athlete that could hit a few 3-pointers on any given night.

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Of course, all of his improvements have been with no defense, and that added variable will not be easy to overcome for Embiid.