The Curious Career of Joel Embiid | The Bill Simmons Podcast 

As in Ben Simmons?? Bill Simmons? Can’t be talking about Ben Simmons being in a “perfect trio”

With the dificult that the Celtics had with two many shooters with Kyrie, Hayward, Tatum and Brown in 2018, Simmons paired with Tatum, Embiid and another shooter would take the pressure for him to shoot and easy to drive without Harris, Butler, Saric and Horford c login the lane

@@miket3910Ben Simmons was an all-nba performer for most of his career. If he didn’t have his coach and costar throw him under the bus, he would still be.

COULDA, SHOULDA, WOULDA doesn't work in "real" life

They failed in almost every single move to build around embiid. Fultz, Simmons, a Jimmy rental, 180 million for Tobias. The list goes on and on

A 7 Series BMW with 140k miles on the odometer.

I'm terrible with cars so I didn't want to embarrass myself and name a specific car lol!@@mjwbulich

I’m in the market for a used Maserati. My name is Steve mills. Oh wait, Leon rose took my job

@@mjwbulich Maserati too lol.

A Land Rover 😂

True, but I think that Rockets team kind of stunk. (They had Olajuwon too. 10-15 years prior and that would’ve been the most insane team ever)

@@patrickthomas8890exactly. My hypothetical Embiid team gone be ass too

Did Ewing have injury issues?

@@fortynights1513 Yeah. He was a beast at Georgetown and in his first few seasons but by 1992/1993, all of the wear and tear started to catch up with Big Pat’s frame.

Funny enough going forward I think his best chance of winning a chip would be to do the 80's Bill Walton route and be a 6th Man. Obviously he's still MVP-level but don't think the Sixers are going to make any headway on a chip while he's still in his prime unless they pull a crazy free agent. Could absolutely dominate for 20-or-so minutes, not have to worry as much about injury or being THE guy during the clutch, which he obviously struggels with,

@@Kagemusha08 I don’t know if they need to go that route just yet but I feel like having a very serviceable backup center could be a huge boon because that’s what helped Boston maintain its dominance this year when Porzingis missed games. Horford was able to slot in and have throwback performances. Paul Reed is fun but I don’t think he’s that guy. Maybe Philly can nab Robinson or Hartenstein from NY.

Embiid is way bigger than both those guys, by a significant margin. Ewing was actually pretty jacked, even though he didn’t really move very fluidly. Hakeem was just ripped and also ran like he was 6 foot tall.

Andre Drummond but then they traded him for Harden

Al Horford is a pretty good backup center now, let alone a few years ago.

Ali said that every white child should be ended before they become white adults and you support someone like that lol

We do not care!

Your grandpa is disappointed in you

False.

the worst thing that happened to Embiid was never the injuries, it was being drafted to Philly

🎯🎯🎯

Philadelphia is also a destination team for free agents or superstars that want to get out of their not ideal situations. Like Harden. But they are getting close to being in the ‘we need to start hitting the jackpot on some guys in the draft’ territory in the next couple years.

and getting Paul George next year would be sweet

​@lylewalker5681yeah everybody loves living in Philly lol. The armpit of the east coast

Reminds me a bit of the Butler injury, easy layup but just had to bait a foul and got injured. I know that's not what Joel was doing but like you said, a change in playstyle might be in both of their best interests.

Yeah but if he did that he wouldn't get gifted 10+ free throws per game.

Reasons why Embiid struggles in the playoffs 1. Playing below your size and settling for jumpers (as he was a forward or shooting guard) 2. Not having a go to reliable effective move offensively (like Jokic, Olajuwon or Kareem) 3) the game in the playoffs is way more physical than in the regular season where defenders can hold you and grab you. 4) the game is reffed differently, less superstar calls and free throws, a skill that Embiid has mastered beyond other superstars. 4. Opposing teams scheme for you and scout your weaknesses unlike in the regular season. You aren't forced into your worse tendencies in a regular season game. 5. Every possession matters in the playoffs and your mistakes are exacerbated. The margins for error are tinier. 6. Pressure, nervousness are real in the NBA. The playoffs are not like NBA 2k where players perform like in the regular season. Joel Embiid and Houston James Harden are very similar players in the sense that they are unstoppable scoring machines in the regular season. In the playoffs their game is easy to pick apart with physical defense and less free throw reliance.

If your playing in the NBA and worrying about highlight plays as a big man, you're probably nearing the end of the road.

He's usually throwing up jumpers and floaters. That was one of the rare times he went up with authority

This reminds me of when Bill said that James Harden is the Karl Malone of guards. I think that may apply in this situation, too.

None by 30 which was what they were talking about. He did get 2 in his last few years with Duncan though

and he's already 30 years old lmao

Ur so slow

@@Pump-rq2uf cope

they've chosen him as THE ONE because there's a faction that simply hates Jokic.

“how little backlash” lmao are you serious? it’s literally the only thing that ever gets brought up when someone one mentions his name

The problem with your comment is you don't know what it's like to be Embiid.

There's also an outrageous amount of organizational mismanagement that has had a devastating impact on his career from 2019-present. The Tobias Harris trade and contract, choosing Ben Simmons over Jimmy Butler, not trading Ben Simmons for James Harden before the 2021 playoffs ruined his hamstring, my god the Tobias Harris contract, choosing lame coach Brown and Ben Simmons over Jimmy Butler, Doc Rivers, paying Tobias Harris max contract money for half a decade. The Markelle Fultz trade. All of this done because Adam Solver forced the 6ers to fire Hinkie and hire that goon Colangelo with his burners and then that idiot Brand and they nuked the team. Oh and Ben Simmons literally gave up on basketball in the middle of a playoff series. That's insane. Unprecedented.

omg bro he falls so much i keep saying this can someone tell this guy to stop falling. You can only fall so much before you have a injury

Right? God, thank you for this. I've been saying for so long that he seems to think he's 6'6" 215 when, in reality, he's one of the biggest players on the court. Like, what the fuck are you doing flopping every play? Do you want to be injured? No? Then stop playing like a foul-baiting chickenshit. Develop some post moves for christ sakes.

Repeatedly getting injured is almost always self inflicted, whether due to playing style, preparation, or diet, the player is always about 99% at fault.

What the hell u talking about? 99%?!

@@carltonrudolph I've been saying this, too, for a long time. There may be 15 or so times where he is going to hit the floor because of the normal course of play. He seems to add another 10 trips to the floor just trying to draw calls. That always seemed unsustainable for a guy who had back surgery early in his career.

Given that he missed the first two years, credit him for having as much of a career as he has. Though I can understand why many are underwhelmed by what he’s done because of his playoff career.

Philly certainly didn't do him any favors by wasting as many high picks as they did. He underperforms a lot but so did Ewing. Just that Ewing had better constructed teams around him and an All Time great coach.

The two playoff concussions were bad luck, so up until recently you could squint and talk yourself into it still. This is the second straight year with knee stuff though, kind of feels like the end of the peak.

Having Sam Hinkie forced out and replaced by incompetent goons who burned all of Hinkie's assets and locked all of the team's money into Tobias Harris and Al Horford, before hiring Doc Rivers, is the real bad luck.

Lowry has had an excellent career but you are correct..

Literally giving up, healthy, on the court, will do that to you. Who exactly is the guy that you're gonna point to and say "go win the finals with Ben Simmons and Tobias Harris as your best two teammates and btw they're making 30+ mil each. Also, we gave Al Horford $120mil in 2020"

Man, what a solid regular season team 😂

😂

the rigged Kawhai shot

@@KwisBwownrigged, how?

@@jeremyapache you didn't see the highly unnatural bounce on the shot? Bill Simmons commented on it also how it almost never bounces like this.

Both are worse in the playoffs than they were in the regular season, but Robinson

Bob McAdoo never made the conference finals as a starter

@@chase8d I’ll give you that one. Only have to go back 50 years.

@@sffan10Some players have objectively good regular seasons and simply can’t translate it into the playoffs

When was this ? Having the stress fractures before the draft and the navicular bone breaks and missing the first 2 and a half years. Jackson was a prophet with that guess.

My apologies... I forgot D'Angelo Russell was an All Star that year in Brooklyn

Holy shit you're right, lol. God, that's pathetic.

You can do the same for lebron in the weak East.

@@jhank0cean and Fred VanVleet (2022 all star the year raptors lost to sixers in playoffs), Goran Dragic (2018 all star the year heat lost to sixers in playoffs). Plus Embiids career is not over, the current series he is in is not over either. there is still some time sport

The guy is always hurt. I'm convinced he's just not a durable guy. Sure guys get banged up, but major injuries are not the same.

Yup

I’m not tryna be rude but this is a horrible take. The dude plays through so many injuries because he wants to win. He’s played through so many injuries that guys sit out for and sacrifices his health in losing playoff series. His pain tolerance is insanely high and no matter how hurt he is he’s always either the best or 2nd best player on the court. He is dramatic but not when it comes to injuries.

If they were true he’d be sitting in the sidelines collecting his paycheck, not rushing to get back in time for the playoffs.

@@DYNAMICHAZZARD he wants an excuse when he chokes in the playoffs like every year

He was demonstrably bleeding through his massive, late 90's Patrick Ewing knee brace. If you think he's was flopping you are an idiot.

What year was he not injured and just looked tired?

When was he not injured?

In his best playoff year Butler has averaged less than Embiid has over his playoff career. Somehow people just overlook that Embiid might not be averaging 30 ppg but he still averages more than all these playoff risers. He just gets held to a different standard and then talked down upon like he still isn't better than all those second option players...

that was a travesty

@@ChryskylodonInstitute what said was that joker had it locked up till the last month when media all of a sudden started saying “can joker by the first back to back to back mvp winner since bird? Bron didn’t do it, Greek didn’t do it.” And later that week it was a 2 man race all of a sudden with Joel with a slight lead and joker needs to do something historic for him to win the mvp for a straight 3rd time.

@@pooksfaamausili6540 Jokic was the MVP over Embiid every month of the season except one. But somehow Embiid's ONE month was considered greater than Jokic's 7. Embarrassing.

@@SchulzEricT I don’t even think the one month was better if anything it was a draw. But makes worst is that narrative was never there until they saw the historical mark it would leave on the game. Then guys like Chris brussard and Kendrick Perkins going on live tv to argue against joker. Saying he won it as a sixth seed his first mvp, Embiid is having a legit mvp caliber season. For one that’s fine embiid having a great year, was it better than joker? No. Plus like stat watching yeah his first mvp wasn’t super impressive until you add context, Murray out the whole yr and porter miss like 3/4 of the year. Like it’s crazy how they just move the goal post

he s not in shape and he s the one letting his teammates down - simmons lol everyone who counts on him is lost

Harden had 2 40+ point games in one series last year when he was in his mid 30s in year 15. Embiid has had 1 40+ point playoff game his whole career

@@hardwoodthought1213 yes he had two great games against Boston. Look at Harden’s stat line the rest of that Boston series.

​. Show me Embiids 😂😂😂😂😂

@@heigherheights21 Ive acknowledged Embiid has underperformed. His teammates were worse.

Father Time is undefeated. Bill is in his fifties now.

Ryen looks way older

Ewing at least made multiple deep playoff runs. Joel was better during the regular season though

To be fair, Ewing was usually available for the playoffs despite the injuries and the only teams that stopped him from 1991-1994 were Jordan’s Bulls and Hakeem’s Rockets.

He’s had 4 All-Stars and can’t even crack a conference finals. Jokic has never had an All-Star and has multiple times

@@hardwoodthought1213 you gotta admit joker has a better team build around his play style . I just want to be clear that the sixers owner doesn’t run the organization well. Look at the history if you don’t believe me. . I do fault Embiid but he doesn’t get all the blame I think he gets 40% and front office gets 60%. Embiids issue is he’s mental toughness in playoffs or lack there of but sixers are frustrating franchise to play for. We gotta stop giving these team managers a pass for bad management. They wasted a lot of iverson prime as well. Tried to do it with Barkley lol

In the blame pie it's definitely not all on Embiid. I'd say 55% front office, 15% injury luck and 30% Embiid I'm a Pistons fan and will say with a straight face that Philly's front office has been worse the last 10 years than Detroit's. And that's not even counting the Fultz trade. If they hadn't gotten super lucky with Maxey I think more people would see just how bad it's been. But Embiid has real limitations in his game and it doesn't hold up in the playoffs. He's like Harden in that he exploits defenses in ways that disappear as you get deeper in the playoffs and he doesn't want to do any of the hard stuff, the selfless stuff.

"Healthy Embiid" is basically "Healthy Derrick Rose" at this point

Still not better than Jokic.

Is that your opinion? Because I'd venture to say a lot of folks don't share it.

@@joeg2258 you don’t believe Walton was the best player on the Blazers title team??? Or you don’t believe Embiid could win a ring as a sixth man late in his career?

@@havok6280 no I'm saying you have your opinion. I don't feel Embiid will hold up long enough and won't win a ring anywhere if he's not healthy

@@joeg2258 Walton wasn’t healthy when he won with the Celtics. He was a bench player for a reason.

@@havok6280 I never even mentioned Walton's name. I did however mention Embiid. I don't feel like his NBA career will wind down with him coming off of a bench and winning a title

McGrady never passed 1st round until his final year and played as the 12th man, and he's in the FoH. Everybody gets in nowadays

Tracy Mcgrady made HOF and he never won a playoff series aside from 1 season carried by Spurs in 13.

- No player with a scoring title has missed the HOF since 1948 (Embiid has 2) - No player with an MVP has missed the HOF (though DRose might) - No player with 7+ all star appearances has missed the HOF since the 50s (though LaMarcus Aldridge and Joe Johnson might) He's an obvious lock, and even if the basketball HOF was as competitive as the baseball or football HOFs, I still think he'd squeak in.

The biggest mvp robbery was the mvp that Nash got over Kobe in 2006

@@KobeisJordans Maybe but I think I disagree. Nash actually had quite a few similarities with Jokic. Extremely efficient individual scoring and improved all the players around him e.g. their eFG%. And both of their teams were top seeds that fell off a cliff without them. I know a lot of the advanced stats at the time were in favour of Lebron more than anyone for MVP that year but it would be interesting to see what Nash's on-off splits were. Bet they were pretty good. But, yeah, Kobe, Nash, Lebron and Dirk probably all had shouts. Unlike last year when all indicators pointed to Jokic.

Epitome of voter fatigue. Embiid was far more worthy this season prior to the injury.

@@KobeisJordans06 wasn’t close to a robbery. Nash went to a team and with the exact same roster and coach won them 33 more games. Then people claimed he’d fail the year after by losing Johnson to FA and STAT to injury. He lost 2 games more than the year before.

​@@hardwoodthought1213 exactly. Nash improved that team in a way that people still find difficult to quantify.

Agree yes

It's lower now but teams will talk themselves into it. I'm not sure you'd actually get a worse trade package. Detroit would likely give you Cade + other stuff in a heartbeat with all the pressure they are under to win even 30 games. Charlotte might give you LaMelo *and* Miller. Atlanta would give you Trae. GS would give you Kuminga + all their picks to extend Steph's run. Chicago, Washington and Portland you could just take your pick of what you want. And NY or Brooklyn would give you every first they own. In the NY scenario you'd have to watch Julius Randle play basketball so idk if there are enough firsts in the world but on the plus side there's a 75% chance Joel would Trojan horse this Knicks team and get Thibs fired. Of course there's a 25% chance he gets in the best shape of his life and Thibs and turns into late career Wilt as a defender, rebounder and hub on offense and rips off two titles.

Yeah those concussions and torn ligaments are basically booboos

Broken orbital bones are easy to play through with a mask on...

He’s either never healthy or always under performing it matters. You are basing him being ‘too good’ on what? The regular season?

@@hardwoodthought1213 if he’s performing like this at 75% health, he would be unstoppable even in the playoffs. His game is actually a half court, playoff style game. This environment benefits him. Jokic himself has said that Embiid is his toughest challenge.

@@him4882 Again, what are you basing this on? Because his game come playoff time has never translated, so on what planet is his game ‘built’ for the playoffs? His game is built for the regular season when teams try less, fouls get called more, teams scheme less, double less, with no stakes. When it matters he hasn’t had a single notable series at 30 years of age.

@@hardwoodthought1213 he’s been hurt every single year. We have not seen a healthy embiid playoff run over the last 4 years. If you want to talk injuries that’s another discussion. But his talent is undeniable. But I guess you know more than Jokic who has to go up against him!

Lmao. That's not new. It's also almost definitely what happened. It's what they did with Ben too and it's part of why they drafted Saric knowing he wasn't coming over I mean Detroit just did this with Cade to try to get Wemby. SA did it with Robinson to get Duncan. Dallas benched Luka the last two games to keep their pick last season. This is the most normal thing not a conspracy theory. Lol. What league are you watching?? The Bulls tried to do this with MJ in *1986* !! (Except he refused and agreed to a minute restriction and Chicago won 5 of their last 8 to get the 8th seed and MJ proceeded to score 63 in the Boston Garden while reigning three-peat MVP Larry Bird called him "God disguised as Michael Jordan" because MJ is MJ.)