Joel Freaking Embiid
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The NBA is about to rediscover the awesome force of the big man in basketball.
If Joel stays healthy, people will begin to refer to the last few seasons of Small Ball the way they refer to the basketball played before Russell and Wilt. Lots of good players back then but no great athletic big men. Not really comparable to the game with great big men.
Small ball will be seen for what it is: how you play when there aren’t any good big men.
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@wissox I know!! 28 F**king minutes too!!
I keep tweeting people, 76ers fans, ESPN know it alls, etc. " Joel is doing things RIGHT NOW, what The Brow is doing after 4 YEARS!! "
Joel stays healthy, and it looks like he will so far, Joel will be the best Center in the league NEXT YEAR!!
They just should give him the Rookie of the Year award, right now. GAME OVER.
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There is no longer a question that Embiid is indeed the best player in that team; every article on the subject pretty much confirms this. What is really satisfying is that the #3 draft pick from KU is outperforming Okafor, the #1 pick from Duke and Noel, the #1 pick for UK. Sweeeeeeeet…
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@Lulufulu I’m not going to get carried away. Davis is a superb player who already has accomplished a lot in this league.
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VHOF = PHOF
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We need Landen and Bragg to watch Joel.
For every great like Embiid that has the will to break through the conventional wisdom of Small Ball, there are dozens of other bigs that can be empowered by the example of Embiid to lift their games a notch; this is the ripple effect of excellence.
Great persons doing great things create a multiplier effect in the rest of us!!! They inspire the rest of us to get better too. Many of us can’t help ourselves from trying. This is one of the keys of great leadership in any activity. You get a whole bunch of persons in anything trying to get better and over time amazing things happen.
Small ball itself has been inspiring in its way. It showed what small players could really do. Steph Curry and his coach Steve Kerr raised the bar on perimeter play for sure. We are all the better for it.
But one great person doesn’t matter that much on his/her own. It’s all the copy catting that he/she triggers that catalyzes overall improvement.
It’s the opposite of Ayn Rand, who perverted the idea of individual greatness into an end in itself.
Individual greatness is just the catalyst of a chain reaction and the chain reaction is vastly more important than the individual greatness.
It’s why so many great leaders are assassinated by entitled fools frightened that they can’t get better, too, and so resort to enabling lone gunmen. Assassination is the mindless prevention of progress, carried out by those that win by leaving everyone poorer.
Truly great persons leave most better by inspiring a critical mass of individuals to actually get better themselves.
Truly great persons are inclusive.
The fakes work for the prosperity of the few.
The size of one’s positive ripple effect for the many is the ultimate criterion of greatness.
Anyone can steal a fortune.
Some can build one within the rules.
But only the truly great can make the lives of all better within the rules, while calling attention to the rules that need changing to let even more get better.
Bill Russell was great. He did great things for himself. He did great things for his team, his franchise and his profession and industry. He did great things for his own African American culture and for the larger American culture.
Joel Embiid, you could be greater. You could take another step the way Muhammad Ali did. You could expand to Africa and around the world.
Go for it!
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@wissox Joel learns so fast and improves so fast. We’ve all seen it at KU. He is bigger and stronger and more skilled now than anyone at the 5 spot…as a freeking Rookie.
Hell yah Im carried away, but I think its warranted.
Look at Davis’ numbers his rookie season. Look at Joel’s. Its not even close!
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@Lulufulu I’ll have to do that. I assumed he started strong right off the bat.
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@wissox Joel has him beat. No doubt.
Thing is, what is the minimum amount of games/minutes required to get ROY?? With Joels minutes restriction, will he have enough to clear it?
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@Lulufulu Yeah, not sure about that if there even is a minutes restriction.
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@Lulufulu he has to play in a 58 games to qualify for ROY
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I appreciate and love your respect for the big man and his place in the game of basketball. Yet JE the lion killer is a rare, once in a life time type player. There is no inner city magic mass producing bigs of the elk of JE.
Unless Nike drains it’s banks accounts to genetically modify DNA. Small Ball is here to stay. The days of just showing up at someone shores with a bunch of marines and piss pounding someone are gone. You light them up from the skies first, then you bring in the ground game.
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Two philosophies at work. I’m curious who would you take to start your team? My vote is for Embiid, (but you can’t upvote your own post.)
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Embiid
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Curry
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To Dylans poll… While I’m a big Embiid fan (that video was awesome) and his ceiling is sky high (as is his wingspan) Curry is one of the greatest shooters ever to hit the NBA and averaged 30pts a game last year. So for now I’d take Curry. Now maybe in a few years if Joel keeps getting better…
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Maybe, but the global population numbers favor there being a lot more. They are spread around the world. There are probably enough out there for every NBA team to start one, if a systematic effort were made. Remember: Joel was considered a project even when he came to KU by most. But all it took were some real basketball men like Self and Norm and the lights went off!!!
The problem with the system of finding them is that there are really only a handful of persons in the world that are qualified to judge which big guys have the get better gene to go along with the obvious size and athleticism variables.
Why is Self so successful? Because he can pick guys out that he can.coach up…that have the get better gene.
If we gave Self a sabbatical and a bunch of inoculations and sent him to Africa for a year and he really went into all the scary, hard to get to places, he would probably come back with 2-3 guys and 2 of them would make it. It’s numbers and pattern recognition of the getting better gene.
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At this time, the potential for Embiid is incredibly high; however, we have yet to find out how if his body can take the abuse of playing close to 40 minutes per game for the 80+ games in the NBA season which is required of a franchise player. I might change my mind in a couple of years…
Curry would be an interesting choice but even when he is an amazing shooter and overall player, he still is somewhat of a one dimensional player. If I had to pick one player, my choice would be either LeBron, who I don’t like much, or Durant who I like a lot. These two are the most complete players in the NBA…in my opinion, of course.
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@JayHawkFanToo agreed about KD
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The playoffs last season showed that LeBron is still the gold standard.
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Embid started off the night with 11 points in 11 minutes. A. Davis 3 in 10
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@JayHawkFanToo I agree. I’d hear people in Kobe v. Lebron arguments (this was before stephs limelight) and it wasn’t even close in my mind. Lebron is the most complete NBA player since MJ in my opinion.
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Embid is the frontrunner for ROY and now being talked about as an NBA All-Star.
http://www.csnphilly.com/philadelphia-76ers/joel-embiid-all-star-consideration-it-would-be-exciting
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Wow, that is pretty dang impressive.
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The challenge with big men is threefold.
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Coordination. Is this guy coordinated enough with both footwork and catching ability to play basketball? How many times have we seen big men that just don’t have the hand eye coordination to catch the ball or block shots, or don’t have the coordination to master even basic footwork in the post?
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Agility. Can this guy run? Can he slide laterally? Can he jump with minimal load? Can he spin and move in traffic? If you watch HS basketball, how often do you see a bigger kid (taller than 6-8) that is okay in space, but if you run a double team at him, he’s hopelessly lost? Just not agile enough to move in a crowd.
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Health. Being that big is hard on your joints and ligaments. Back problems. Foot problems. Knee problems. Ankle problems.
So let’s look at the greats. Walton checked the first two boxes, but health took him down. Olajuwon had it all. Wilt had it all. Kareem had it all. Shaq had it all, but even for the ones who had it all, health ultimately limited them as they aged. Even Tim Duncan struggled with foot problems early in his career before making some training adjustments.
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Too late in their respective carreers to start a franchise around LeBron 31 (best player hands down today but in 5 years?) or Curry 28 really. Embiid 22 is freakin’ awesome, but he’s gotta stay healthy.
I don’t care for the NBA, so I have little clue who the best young guards/wings are - Kyrie 24 and NBA champ? Portzingis 21 ?, Wiggins 21?
The number by the name is their age.
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Russel Westbrook as been a triple double machine this season…
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I was thinking 25 year old or younger would probaly be better. I forgot baby face Curry is 28 years old, so is Westbrook.
I would hate to start a franchise with an old LBJ and waste his final years while his production hampers our ability to draft high and get him complemetary pieces. I would start with a young Embiid or Anthony Davis personally and accumulate better pieces as the team matures in the next 3 years.
The original point was completely lost in the way I phrased the question and should’ve phrased the question.
Would you start your franchise with a guard or a post player?
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Just read an article about the possibility of Jo, Jo making the all star game, - -quite real. Getting props from Coaches, & players pretty sweet:
Latest encounter with what some believe the best center in the N.B.A - -DeMarcus Cousins. Pretty much a stand off. - -Jo, Jo 25 pts, 8 rebs, 2 blks , 2 steals in 29 minutes - -although ooops 8 turnovers. - -Cousins had 30 pts- -7 rebs, - -2 blks - -and 3 steals. - -Cousins said later - -I like that kid ALOT. - - I don’t give people a lot of props, but I really like that kid. - - I think he has a great chance to be the best big in the league - - AFTER I retire.
Sacramento Coach - - It should be illegal to be that big and that talented at the same time lmao. So far Jo Jo for the season is at 18.7 ppg - - 7.4 rpg- -2,4 blks per game – & 46.8 shooting % in avg 24.7 minutes per game.- - he leads all rookies in several different stats - -OUR BOY IS AN ANIMAL. - - -ROCK CHALK ALL DAY LONG BABY
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Go up six posts
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@Ralph - - YA? - - AND? – -ROCK CHALK ALL DAY LONG BABY
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The video of that game was awesome. Two superstar centers going at it and having fun. They were smiling and laughing. Pretty cool to see because it’s so rare. Everyone plays with a scowl on their face like it’s war or something.
By the way @Ralph’s comment was referring to the article he posted which you referred to. He was first in other words!
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@wissox that was really cool coming from boogie!
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@wissox OH WELL HELL my bad - - hate coming in 2nd lol - - -ROCK CHALK ALL DAY LONG BABY
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there were several articles that came out at the sametime. The one you posted about had more stats and it never hurts to talk about a good thing. The main reason I posted the one I did was for this paragraph.
The NBA is rolling out a new voting format for the 2017 All-Star Game. Fans will make up 50 percent of the voting, with current players and media members splitting the other half. Each player can fill out one ballot and can vote for themselves.
So get out and vote Embid
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@Ralph and wiggs
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Voting for the NBA All-Star game began on December 25th and goes until Monday, January 16th at 11:59 p.m. ET. You can vote 10 times per day on NBA.com/vote or on Twitter.
Do like we did the Royals and vote all the NBA JAYHAWKS IN
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I would probably start a franchise around Kawhi Leonard if I had to choose. He’s only 25 and is a bona fide superstar. He’s a two way player that guards the best wings in the league night in and night out, plus he is now a 24 ppg scorer.
Give me that guy, and I will figure out what the heck to put around him.
Cousins attitude would scare me out of making him my centerpiece. Davis has had injury/ durability problems. Lots of guys are probably a little too old (James, Durant, Westbrook, Curry, Harden, etc.) though their talent is enticing.
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@justanotherfan Good choice! He’s one heck of a guard. Right or wrong big man talent is more attractive to me as excellent big men are much more rare than excellent guards.
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@dylans coach selfs choice!
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Damian Lillard?
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@JayHawkFanToo gotta play D
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@Crimsonorblue22 exactly what I was thinking!
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I would start my team with Wilt Chamberlain. He’s probably better dead than I am alive!
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@Ralph Hell yah, I voted for JoJo! #NBAVOTE
I also voted for Wiggins, Steph Curry, Durant
And The Morrii
And Cole and Rush
I had to
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@wissox I’m trying really hard not to say anything!
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@jayballer54 I know! I saw that article. Cool of Ex UK guy Boogie Cousins to give props to Embiid. But, I gotta say that Joel WILL be the best Center in the league in less than 5 years and Joel WILL stay healthy.
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Embiid on Cousins: ““I don’t think I’m going to wait until he retires to be the best big man in the league.” https://t.co/sXOKUshDds
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Ouch.
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@Ralph said:
Do like we did the Royals and vote all the NBA JAYHAWKS IN
Heck, vote all the Royals in again!
