100%. This Embolympics (yes, also embolism of the Embiid basketball fan experience) is quickly becoming a cautionary tale of drafting players who start playing at a later age. He's 30 years old and started to play basketball at age 15. Albeit a quick learner and a master of mimicry, it's becoming clear that that unique ability applies mostly to his own individual skillset on offense. On defense, he seems to be able to apply his soccer roots in anticipating space and positioning. Where he doesn't seem to have an intuitive feel is within the team concept on offense and it doesn't help that he started late, had a pretty quick introduction to basketball for a few years and then transitioned almost immediately (after a few years on the sideline) into being the hub and spoke of a team that could rely almost entirely on his ability to dominate 1v1s during the regular season. It's easy to use this as an excuse, but I sometimes imagine a timeline where Embiid picked up basketball at a much younger age and played higher-level ball in the critical 10-14 year-old range. THAT Embiid -- without a doubt -- could've been one of the greatest basketball players. But this universe is only able to appreciate the brilliance of an Embiid that seems to only thrive in the setting he really has only truly known -- an all-or-nothing one-player dominant team. We're kind of seeing that in the Olympics now and it'll be really interesting to see this season play out with PG and Maxey.
100%. This Embolympics (yes, also embolism of the Embiid basketball fan experience) is quickly becoming a cautionary tale of drafting players who start playing at a later age. He's 30 years old and started to play basketball at age 15. Albeit a quick learner and a master of mimicry, it's becoming clear that that unique ability applies mostly to his own individual skillset on offense. On defense, he seems to be able to apply his soccer roots in anticipating space and positioning. Where he doesn't seem to have an intuitive feel is within the team concept on offense and it doesn't help that he started late, had a pretty quick introduction to basketball for a few years and then transitioned almost immediately (after a few years on the sideline) into being the hub and spoke of a team that could rely almost entirely on his ability to dominate 1v1s during the regular season. It's easy to use this as an excuse, but I sometimes imagine a timeline where Embiid picked up basketball at a much younger age and played higher-level ball in the critical 10-14 year-old range. THAT Embiid -- without a doubt -- could've been one of the greatest basketball players. But this universe is only able to appreciate the brilliance of an Embiid that seems to only thrive in the setting he really has only truly known -- an all-or-nothing one-player dominant team. We're kind of seeing that in the Olympics now and it'll be really interesting to see this season play out with PG and Maxey.