This Year Was Progress for Joel Embiid

It wasn't a perfect series from Joel, but MOC leaves this postseason very encouraged by what he saw from our franchise center.

As I’ve written in the past, one of the most incredible things about Joel Embiid is his ability to drive everyone crazy. There are segments of people who wish physical harm upon him because he’s a foul grifter, and there are segments of people who will swarm to your replies any time you tweet the lightest criticism of him whatsoever. He is a fascinating player and person with a career that is hard to contextualize, and giving an honest, unbiased evaluation of him can be extraordinarily difficult. He always manages to exist in this gray area where people can endlessly push whatever prior beliefs they already had about him. 

Over the years, I feel as though I’ve proven myself pretty well to be someone who is neither an Embiid stan nor an Embiid hater. I was one of the loudest voices campaigning for him to win MVP in 2022 and 2023, but I was also one of his harshest critics for the ways that he went out in the playoffs over the past few years. And as someone who considers themselves relatively objective in terms of Embiid, I feel as though I can safely say that this series – and the year as a whole – marks real progress for him. I feel more confident than I did a year ago that he can potentially be the centerpiece of a championship team, and I feel that he’s helped build his case against the loser allegations. 

If you only look at the surface, you might not see it that way. He did, in fact, lose in the first round, and he did end another year while considerably banged up, which has been the single biggest knock on his career to date. But here’s the thing: if you’ve been around a while, and have kept a close eye on Embiid’s postseason performances, you know that the energy was different this time around.

Embiid showed more fight and more resilience than he has in his previous three (six?) playoff performances. Thursday night was by far his best elimination game of his career. Notably, he was not particularly worn down by the attrition of the series, like he had been in previous years. He showed real leadership after the collapse in Game 2, saying that the Sixers would win the series, and then backed it up with an incredibly gutty 50 point performance in Game 3. He didn’t pout, whine, or complain about the physicality of the Knicks. He acquitted himself well by just about every measurement of toughness you could apply – perhaps with the only asterisk being a couple of cheap shots that he dished out in Game 3.

And, so, for the first time in years, I find myself feeling satisfied with the effort we got from Embiid in these playoffs, and I take real solace in that. This year was always going to be an uphill battle to title contention, given that it started off with the Harden trade and had a major Embiid injury two-thirds of the way through the season. But getting to see real progress in terms of Embiid’s playoff performance is a highly encouraging takeaway when thinking about this team’s future. 

I imagine that over the summer, Embiid and the Sixers will receive a fair bit of criticism from the national media for having another early playoff exit. And some of it will be fair – Embiid does need to get in better shape, and take more precautions to avoid injury. His defensive impact, while still very good, was not what it could have been if he were healthy. He also needs to avoid turning the ball over as much, and perhaps have a better sense of when to take over a game in the fourth quarter. But anyone slamming Embiid as a gutless loser frankly was not paying attention, and anyone acting like Embiid’s statistical output was hollow or inflated is also not painting an accurate picture.

Embiid finished the series averaging 33 points, 10.8 rebounds, and 5.7 assists on 59 percent true shooting against an elite defensive team, which spent nearly half the series double teaming him on every post touch. He made the right play on the vast majority of the double teams he faced – something you could not say about him in previous playoff runs – and racked up a ton of hockey assists. Even in Embiid’s worst game of the series (Game 5, in which he was battling a migraine earlier that day), the Sixers still generated constant open three-pointers because of the double teams the Knicks were sending at him. There aren’t five players in the world who can have that type of consistent impact on offense, let alone on one of their worst nights.

Contextualizing Embiid as a playoff performer can be hard. He’s undeniably a top-three regular season player, but you would probably have to rank him somewhere around eighth or so as a postseason performer given the superior playoff resumes of the other players in that range. Still; he exits this postseason currently ranking second among all players in points per game, eighth in rebounds per game, and 13th in assists. Anyone acting like this series was a total stinker from Embiid is just not being fair. 

Finally, A Loss That Ends the Sixers' Season Without Ending the Whole World With It

So, all in all, I find myself more encouraged than not when thinking about the Sixers’ future. They lost this series because their role players were a million times worse than New York’s and Embiid was not quite healthy enough to perform some sort of all-time carry job – not because they are just pathetic losers. Going into this off-season with a real coach, a real No. 2 in Tyrese Maxey, tons of resources to improve the team, and the knowledge that Embiid is trending upwards as a playoff performer, I feel unusually good about the Sixers’ short-term future. 

I don’t mean to make this too much of a celebration for Embiid: It is a huge bummer to watch another year go by of his prime without having made a deep playoff run. The simple fact of the matter is that at this moment, no one should consider Embiid’s all-time ranking as being on par with players like Jokic or Giannis, who have both had more than one deep playoff run. All the excuses in the world won’t be enough to make the basketball community consider him on the tier of other great players who have indeed had their playoff success. 

But this loss just feels different. It feels less embarrassing, and more like an honest, hard-fought loss. In 2021, 2022, and 2023, Embiid went out sad. His performances in elimination games, and his quotes to the media afterwards, were undeniably loser energy. This time, I’m willing to say he went the other way. I will look back on this series as one in which Embiid deserves more credit than blame. He does not deserve to be crushed and labeled as a loser for the way he performed, and I am absolutely hopeful that he can continue to build upon this in playoff runs to come. 

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Mike O’Connor is the best O’Connor in basketball writing. Previously of The Athletic, you can find Mike on Twitter @MOConnor_NBA. Mike’s writing is brought to you by Body Bio, supplements based on science, focusing on your gut and brain health. Get 20% off E-Lyte, Gut+, and all Body Bio products with promo code FIRECJ at Body Bio’s website.