An outstanding ESPN feature revealed more about Joel Embiid than anything ever has and maybe ever will.
A few months ago, I was asked to speak to students at my alma mater, Rowan University. The professor who asked is one of my favorites, and I likely wouldn’t be doing this job if not for her (shoutout, Candace Kelley), so I agreed to do it.
The students were awesome. They asked great questions, some that took serious thought to answer. As things were winding down on our Zoom call, Professor Kelley told the students there was time for one more question. A student raised his hand and asked something that strayed from a typical question you’d have for a guest speaker:
Off the record, what is Joel Embiid really like?
First off, kudos to that young man — you might have a shot in this business, kid.
I had to collect my thoughts. I guess I hadn’t taken much stock in what I personally think Joel Embiid is really like. I never viewed that as part of the gig.
The word I kept coming back to was misunderstood.
A recent feature by ESPN’s Dotun Akintoye only confirmed that viewpoint. Akintoye’s piece provides a fascinating view of one of the most surprisingly introverted athletes you’ll come across. It’s excellent, and you should absolutely read every word of it.
The picture it paints is mostly heartbreaking. Embiid isolated himself as a kid in Cameroon. He became even more isolated when, at 16, he moved to Florida to pursue basketball. He never truly believed in himself as a basketball player until he was drafted third overall by the Sixers in 2014. Then, the death of his 13-year-old brother Arthur changed everything. Embiid blamed himself, and it still hangs over everything he does.
“It’s never going to change,” Embiid says, all but whispering. “I still feel it.”
From there, it seemed like Embiid struggled to find himself. The silly Twitter persona he created was a mask to cover up the real mental trauma he was enduring.
He butted heads with people around the Sixers who didn’t have his back while he was dealing with his navicular bone injury. A second surgery was required because the bone didn’t heal properly. Embiid voiced his concerns about his foot not getting better, but some people in the organization didn’t believe him.
Two things can both be true when reading this story: Embiid is his own worst enemy when it comes to playing through injuries, and the Sixers should’ve intervened more frequently to protect him from himself.
Embiid said in the piece that he began therapy last year at the urging of Jameer Nelson, whom the Sixers recently promoted to assistant general manager. The story mentions that Embiid and Nelson have become good friends, which is a pretty big deal when you see the way Akintoye describes how guarded the big man is and how tight he keeps his circle.
The one thing Embiid admits is that he feels a sense of guilt when he’s unable to play, even if it’s because of injury. He talks about feeling like he’s letting his teammates and the fans down, which is why he often refuses to sit. The details of what he dealt with during the playoff series against the New York Knicks two years ago — both his surgically repaired left knee and bout with Bell’s Palsy, which caused migraines and kept Embiid up at night — are grueling.
Embiid wishes someone had intervened…
“In those situations, you wish some of the people upstairs kind of had your back and were like, this is not OK,” he says. “You’re not playing.”
Although he concedes he’ll always fight to suit up.
He looked me in the eye and said, “We can sit here and I’ll tell you I’m changing, but I know myself. I don’t think that’s going to happen. … I always want to play.”
Embiid’s legacy has always been complicated. There’s no doubting the ridiculous talent and moments of sheer dominance. Those moments tend to get overshadowed by the disappointment of the Sixers not getting past the second round of the playoffs during his career.
But often in NBA discourse, we lose sight of humanity. (That seemingly stretches well beyond NBA discourse, but I digress.) This feature is a reminder that, yes, these guys make more money than most of us will ever see and can do things athletically most of us can only dream of, but they’re human beings.
Back in December of last year, Embiid returned to the floor after suffering a facial fracture (again) and missing just one game. The Sixers beat the Charlotte Hornets that night while a masked Embiid dropped a cool 34 points in 31 minutes.
After the game, I asked Embiid during a scrum at his locker how he was dealing with everything mentally. How could he compartmentalize everything around him and simply play basketball?
What came next was the best and most thoughtful answer I’ve ever gotten in the nearly decade that I’ve covered him.
“I don’t know,” he said, letting out a small laugh, seemingly looking for that answer himself.
“Talking to somebody. Get some help. See if that helps. Really just stop asking myself questions. … It’s kind of hard when you get in those moments to not feel bad about yourself, especially when you know who you are and what you can accomplish. … One lesson that I learned is to try to stop feeling bad about myself and just try and live day by day, enjoy good people around me, the positivity, and not focus on the negativity.”
Everyone is hoping he can get healthy and physically return to his MVP form.
But here’s hoping Embiid heeds his own advice and finds peace mentally, too.