The Sixer Sense Roundtable: Joel Embiid First Impressions

Philadelphia 76ers center Joel Embiid is now a few weeks into his NBA career, so it’s time to form some official first impressions about him. Here’s what our staff has to say.

Well, Philadelphia 76ers fans, Joel Embid is here, and he is, in fact, real. The 7-2 (or maybe 7-3, if the rumors are true) monster has dominated the key and shown that he can hop on the versatility train too, showing good ball handling and 3-point shooting.

There’s been a lot of positive to take away from the Sixers first eight games, despite just winning one of them. This is something new for fans, and something new for Embiid as well.

Joel spent the first two full seasons of his NBA career injured. He has hunger to play, and it was clear at times that he was hurting over not being able to be on the court in real-game situations.

We saw this in the Sixers’ first win of the season in overtime against the Pacers on Friday. Embiid met his minutes restriction at the buzzer of the end of regulation, and came back to the bench saying, “I’m playing.”

Starting off overtime, Embiid was on the bench, clearly emotional over not being in the game. In a risky move, Brown put Embiid in the game. It paid off, as the Sixers would win the game.

There’s a lot to talk about when it comes to Embiid. The staff here at The Sixer Sense came together to put some first impressions about the charismatic player together. Here is what we came up with.