Joel Embiid has done quite a bit in his NBA career to this point. When you consider that he didn’t pick up the game until he was 15 years old, it’s nothing short of miraculous.
Along with his achievement and accolades, he has also had more than his fair share of bad luck. He sat out his first two seasons following the NBA Draft due to injury. On top of that, he has missed 204 games – nearly three entire seasons – because he was not healthy.
These days, fans and pundits throw around GOAT conversations – which player or players could be considered the Great Of All Time. LeBron vs. Michael, Brady vs. Everyone, Prince vs. Michael Jackson (it’s Prince). Embiid was asked in an interview with the New York Times whether he would be in those conversations if it weren’t for his myriad of injuries.
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“I think so. I think I’m that talented,” Embiid said. “Obviously you need to win championships, and to win championships you need other guys. You can’t do it by yourself. I want to win so bad. But if you don’t, you just got to understand that as long as you care about the right stuff, if it doesn’t happen, maybe it wasn’t meant to happen.”
“If you think about it, the thing that stopped me all these years is just freak injuries. Every single playoffs, regular season, people falling on my knee or breaking my face — twice. It’s always freak injuries at the wrong time.”
Is he right? Could Embiid be considered among the GOATs if he stayed relatively healthy throughout his career?
Well, yes and no.
For what he has already done to this point in his career, at age 30, you could argue that Embiid doesn’t need to do any more to be a Hall of Fame player:
- He won an MVP award, and finished second in the voting twice. And if he didn’t hurt his knee this past season, he was likely top two yet again, if not the front runner. Only five other centers have won multiple MVP awards.
- He has been named to seven All-Star games. 15 other centers all-time have been to more than Embiid.
- Two scoring titles, a feat only surpassed by nine players in NBA history. Again, he was well on his way to a third, before his latest significant injury.
- He is the most efficient point scorer in league history, averaging 31.4 pts/36 minutes. That’s nearly two points better than Luka Doncic, the player immediately behind him.
Add that to the fact that he has at least 6-7 NBA seasons remaining, and yes, you could say that he could finish his career as one of the best centers ever.
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But, and this is a but about that size of the Comcast Center, did he ever do it when the lights are brightest, with an entire season on the line, in the postseason?
The argument against Embiid as a GOAT is a very valid one. How could anyone be considered among the best ever, who has never made a conference final? Allen Iverson made it once, in 2001, when he dragged his team within three wins of the title, before falling to that year’s version of the Monstars, the Los Angeles Lakers, who lost exactly one game that postseason.
His career scoring average, fourth all-time at 27.9 ppg, drops to 24.9 in the postseason, where every point counts. (He did score 50 and 39 in two separate games against the Knicks this past spring.)
Between the poor injury luck, and poor luck in general – Kawhi’s four-bouncer, being saddled with Ben Simmons against the Hawks – there are reasons for his postseason shortcomings. But neither the record books nor the bar and barber shop arguments care about the why not.
No one asks how did you get to the conference finals. They ask how many times did you get to the conference finals.
The answer is still zero.
Until that zero becomes a one, it will hang around Embiid’s neck like an albatross, mocking every regular season exploit, every scoring title, every 70-point game.
It will also keep him out of any conversation involving GOATs.