Philadelphia 76ers center Joel Embiid earned All-NBA Second Team honors for the fourth time in five seasons.
For the fourth time in the past five seasons, Joel Embiid has been selected to the All-NBA Second Team.
Despite receiving 57 votes for the First Team and 414 total points, the MVP runner-up did not qualify for the First Team. The league announced the 15 All-NBA picks on Tuesday night.
Jayson Tatum finished with 390 total points, 24 fewer than Embiid, but made the First Team because, as the NBA's official release notes, “players who received votes at multiple positions were slotted at the position at which they received the most voting points.”
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So, though Embiid was eligible at both forward and center, he ultimately was not a First-Team choice because MVP Nikola Jokic received the majority of center votes and Tatum scored better than Embiid in forward voting. The NBA will release the full ballots of its 100-voter panel after announcing all end-of-season awards.
Per a Sixers press release, Hall of Fame players Dolph Schayes, Wilt Chamberlain, Hal Greer, Billy Cunningham, Julius Erving, Charles Barkley and Allen Iverson are the only Sixers besides Embiid with at least four All-NBA selections. Embiid this year became the first Sixer since Iverson to win the scoring title, averaging 30.6 points per game.
Embiid passed Chamberlain on the team’s all-time scoring list in February. The 28-year-old is currently 11th with 8,535 points in 328 games. He played a career-high 68 this year and 59 of 63 after returning from COVID-19 in November.
NBA
Embiid rose to seventh on the Sixers’ made three-point list this season and is 45 away from passing former teammate JJ Redick.
Injuries dented Embiid and the Sixers’ chances of going beyond the second round of the playoffs for the first time in over 20 years. He suffered a right orbital fracture and concussion during garbage time of the Sixers’ Game 6 win over the Raptors in Round 1, absorbing an elbow from Pascal Siakam that caused him to miss the opening two games of the second round against the Heat. Embiid also played through a torn ligament in his right thumb, delaying surgery until the offseason.
“ … There’s a lot of questions that can be asked,” he said following the Sixers’ Game 6 defeat to Miami. “I don’t know the answers. … It’s not my job to figure that out. My job is to work hard. (The front office has) a lot of decisions. In this league, anybody can get traded. So what I can control is just work harder and try to get better every single year.”
Read more: Health still No. 1, but what else should Embiid focus on this summer?
