As far as Joel Embiid is concerned, there is nothing to base his future games off of, since he has appeared in zero NBA games up to this point. Still, we can set goals based on what has happened since he was drafted.
Since he was drafted, he has re-injured his foot, and arguably that was due to him being somewhat careless with his initial injury recovery. So, what we’d obviously like to see from him is a more general awareness of needing to be careful with his foot, especially off of the floor.
Aside from that, we have seen what Joel has been working on in pregame warmups. In that, we’ve seen solid 3-point shooting, and decent free-throw shooting as well. Although I don’t foresee any scenarios where Embiid becomes a Chris Bosh-like 3-point shooting center, I do think he should make himself available for a few 3-point looks a night.
Additionally, when he does make it to the free-throw line, I’d like to see him sink 60 percent or higher of his attempts.
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These are more or less goals than they are improvements for Embiid, but like I said, we can’t really ask Embiid to improve what doesn’t quite exist yet. Embiid simply being on the floor is an improvement from past seasons in the center position, if he does in fact play there more than he does at the power forward slot.