Joel Embiid’s Crowd-Hurdling: Scary or Exciting?

Philadelphia 76ers rookie center Joel Embiid has gone after loose balls and found him in the crowd twice this year. Is it scary or exciting for fans?

What do fans want from a player that is likely to be the franchise player, face of the team, and star of the franchise for the next era? A couple qualities come to mind at first thought — dedication, intensity, and excitement. In a few moments over the last few Philadelphia 76ers games, Joel Embiid proved those three qualities in two similar, distinct plays.

Both plays involved Embiid hitting the deck — something we’ve grown accustomed to seeing from him — but not in the traditional way we imagine NBA players taking a spill. Instead of landing on the court, Embiid landed in between the first and second row of spectators at the Wells Fargo Center. Embiid has gotten caught up chasing a loose ball twice now and in both cases has lost his balance and his momentum towards the ball has carried over into the crowd.

Embiid is listed as 7-foot-2, and 250 pounds. Most people in the crowd are 6-foot-3 (at most) and maybe pushing 200 pounds in some cases, but most often are quite a bit lighter than that. To see something like a 7-foot-2 man come crashing towards you during an NBA game is a shocking sight, to say the least.

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Of course, by purchasing court-side seats to an NBA basketball game, this shouldn’t be something that is all that surprising to the fans sitting in the first few rows. The game is played with high energy, and the fans are placed very close to the court.

For Sixers fans and the team in general, though, Embiid diving out of bounds like he does after those loose balls can be a little bit scary. When he falls down in the stands, there’s always that moment of time where everyone seems to be holding their breath, just hoping that Embiid will be able to get up with no bumps, scratches, or any injuries to report.

Both times Embiid has jumped into the stands so far, he has been fine, but when you’re dealing with a big man that sat out his first two seasons due to injury, jumping into a crowd of people isn’t the safest thing in the world. A multitude of things can happen to a body when jumping into an environment like that.

This is especially true when we’re talking about Embiid’s jump into the crowd against the Brooklyn Nets on Sunday. Embiid went into the crowd with his feet — where his injury was in his first two NBA seasons — down. Standing on human beings, chairs, and whatever else is found in the crowd is by no means stable, and could lead to re-injury with his foot.

In retrospect with these two plays, you love the hustle. These loose balls might not mean much at all, but the energy displayed by Embiid, even though he could just as easy let those balls go with no issue, is impressive. It does embody a star quality that Sixers fans love to see.

At the same time, the Sixers medical staff would probably like to see his jumping into the crowd cut to a minimum from here on out. Their job is to keep him healthy, and that’s very difficult to do when he’s being apparently careless on the court.

To me, it’s not carelessness. Instead, it’s just Embiid putting it all out there and really forgetting that there’s a world outside the game as well. Each play is important to Embiid, each loose ball prominent, and each game a game that holds championship-like caliber.

Embiid's crowd hurdling
— The Sixer Sense (@SixerSense) December 19, 2016

What do you think of Embiid jumping into the crowd to save loose balls that probably don’t mean much in the grand scheme of things? Vote in our poll above!