Joel Embiid has been a delight in his first year with the Philadelphia 76ers, and he is on pace to have one of the best seasons by an NBA center ever. His play recently led him to being named as one of three finalists for this season’s MVP award alongside James Harden and Russell Westbrook.
Joel Embiid is a professional basketball player for the Philadelphia 76ers. He is one of the youngest players to ever play in the NBA, and he has set his sights on becoming the first center to win an NBA scoring title since Shaquille O’Neal. Read more in detail here: how old is joel embiid.
While most basketball fans are focused on the NBA MVP race between Nikola Jokic and Giannis Antetokounmpo and the constant marches to the free-throw line (a trend that is only getting more attention now that fellow whistle-drawer James Harden has joined the team), Philadelphia 76ers center Joel Embiid is just going to keep scoring.
The 27-year-old big man has climbed above the pack in the battle for the coveted scoring championship after posting 32.5 points per game in February despite frequent speculations about his teammates up to the Feb. 10 trade deadline and during the integration of new running mates after it. In doing so, he’s entered terrain uncharted to real centers throughout the Association’s current, three-point-happy era.
Few centers have come close to winning the points-per-game title since Shaquille O’Neal of the Los Angeles Lakers won it in 1999-00.
The NBA has moved away from centers who score a lot of points.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lmCD OGn-NY
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Basketball in the NBA has evolved significantly over the previous several decades. Whether this is a beneficial development (and one that should incorporate the understanding that uniformity in end is not the same as homogeneity in process) is an argument for another time, but the fact that alterations have happened is undeniable.
Whereas many attacks depended on post-up opportunities from dominating paint-bound players to produce points in the late 1990s and early 2000s, everything has migrated to the perimeter now.
The three-pointer has changed conventional thinking and made strategies stress shooting efficiency in a new manner, boosted even more in recent years by Stephen Curry’s inconceivable ascension. Players have also gotten more flexible, allowing players with builds that would have confined them to the paint 20 years ago to operate as spot-up shooters and on-ball playmakers around the three-point line. As score-first 1s have become the norm rather than the exception, even lead guards have started to show a change in attitude.
The specifics, like the value discussion, will have to wait for another day. And, just as the prevalence of the changes is undeniable, the reduction of centers vying for championships is undeniable as well.
Patrick Ewing, Hakeem Olajuwon, David Robinson, and Shaquille O’Neal, among others, were threats to lead the league in points per game throughout the 1990s. O’Neal (1994-95 and 1999-00) and Robinson (1993-94) were the only players to win scoring championships, with Michael Jordan and Allen Iverson grabbing the rest.
However, there have been very few rivals since the new century.
In the 2000s, frontcourt rivals for the championship
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In the early 2000s, O’Neal remained a force to be reckoned with, combining an incredible level of strength with exquisite touch around the rim. Following Robinson’s retirement, Tim Duncan, who was always labeled as a power forward but played more like a center, finished in the top ten in the scoring race three times: fourth in 2001-02, seventh in 2002-03, and eighth in 2003-04.
What’s next? In essence, nothing.
A few other real frontcourt players have emerged as serious contenders for the scoring record, but none of them are true centers:
- Kevin Garnett is a basketball player that plays in the NBA (two top-10 finishes, peaking at No. 3 in 2003-04)
- Nowitzki, Dirk (10 top-10 finishes, peaking at No. 4 in 2004-05 and 2008-09)
- Amar’e Stoudemire is a basketball player who plays for the New York Knicks (four top-10 finishes, peaking at No. 5 in 2004-05 and 2007-08)
- Chris Bosh is a basketball player who plays for the Los Angeles (three top-10 finishes, peaking at No. 9 in 2008-09 and 2009-10)
- Blake Griffin is a professional basketball player (three top-10 finishes, peaking at No. 6 in 2013-14)
- LaMarcus Aldridge is a basketball player who plays for the Los Angeles Lakers (five top-10 finishes, peaking at No. 7 in 2011-12 and 2014-15)
- Kevin Love is a well-known actor who has (two top-10 finishes, peaking at No. 4 in 2011-12 and 2013-14)
- Brook Lopez is a model and actress (No. 10 in 2012-13)
- Cousins, DeMarcus (four top-10 finishes, including a top-four result in 2015-16)
- Anthony Davis is a professional basketball player (four top-10 finishes, peaking at No. 2 in 2017-18)
Brook Lopez qualified as a real 5 in 2012-13, despite the fact that it was still early in his career and he hadn’t made a single three-pointer. DeMarcus Cousins fits into the same category, despite the fact that his style, which relied heavily on his bruising nature near the hoop, still brought him out to the perimeter.
The remainder were more 4s than 5s, notably Anthony Davis, who has long been wary of playing true center and absorbing the physical toll that job entails on defense.
Then there was Embiid.
Since Shaquille O’Neal, Joel Embiid might be the first genuine center to win the scoring championship.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ga5iB1 F9oU
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Since O’Neal won his second and last championship in the 1999-00 season, who have been the true winners of the scoring race? Allen Iverson (three times), Tracy McGrady (twice), Kobe Bryant (twice), LeBron James, Dwayne Wade, Kevin Durant (four times), Carmelo Anthony, Russell Westbrook (twice), Stephen Curry (twice), and James Harden are among the players who have won the award (three times).
There are a lot of guards and a few wing-dwelling forwards on that list, but not a single player who spends the majority of his time in the interior. However, now that Embiid is averaging a league-best 29.8 points per game, he has the potential to shift the narrative in 2021-22.
In 2018-19, the Kansas product made his first appearance in the top ten scoring race, averaging 27.5 points per game for the Philadelphia 76ers, behind James Harden (36.1), Paul George (28.0), and Giannis Antetokounmpo (28.0). (27.7). After slipping out of the top four in 2019-20, he climbed back to No. 4 in 2020-21, averaging 28.5 points per game, behind Stephen Curry (32.0), Bradley Beal (31.3), and Damian Lillard (31.3). (28.8).
This year, he has no rivals.
When he isn’t showing off his prowess outside the arc, Embiid has succeeded in practically every area as a scorer, brutalizing opponents on the interior with his unique blend of toughness and elegance. He makes 36.7 percent of his 3.7 three-point tries per game, 44.0 percent of his two-point jumpers from at least ten feet, and 76.1 percent of his shoots from inside three feet. That combination is unthinkable for anybody, much alone a guy described at 7-foot-0 and 280 pounds.
Embiid, of course, benefits unquestionably (and, in some quarters, controversially) from his frequent march to the charity stripe. He’s making a career-high 11.6 free-throw attempts per game and completing 81.5 percent of the time, which has boosted his chances in the scoring battle.
Even though this irritates some, it’s difficult to blame the authorities for not blowing their whistles more regularly. Embiid has such a powerful physical presence that opponents can’t stop him without retaliating with their own aggressiveness, and he’s attacked the basket with unrelenting intensity in 2021-22. Plus, like Harden, Trae Young, and others before him, he understands how to use the rule book to his advantage in order to obtain cheap calls.
If anything, you could make a case that officials could reasonably send Embiid to the stripe more frequently but must instead let him play through increased physicality as a result of his own frame and playing style — a case similar to that of peak Shaquille O’Neal, who drew plenty of uncalled hacks from opponents desperate for a way to slow him down on the interior.
Joel Embiid might soon join the club of centers who have won the scoring crown.
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The 2021-22 NBA season has plenty of juice left to squeeze, and any number of competitors might overtake Embiid and deny him his goal of becoming the first true center to lead the league in points per game since Shaquille O’Neal.
Giannis Antetokounmpo (29.4), LeBron James (28.9), DeMar DeRozan (28.2), Trae Young (27.9), Ja Morant (27.6), Luka Doncic (27.5), Donovan Mitchell (25.9), Jayson Tatum (25.9), and Stephen Curry (25.8) are all within four points of his 29.8. That, along with less touches if James Harden becomes more comfortable with the Philadelphia approach, might be enough.
There are no other centers in that group, which is very revealing. Nikola Jokic (No. 12 on the list with 25.5 points per game), Karl-Anthony Towns (No. 14 with 24.5), Domantas Sabonis (No. 32 with 18.9), and Jonas Valanciunas (No. 32 with 18.9) are the next true 5s on the list (No. 38 at 18.0).
If Embiid does break the pattern, he’ll join a long line of centers who have won the scoring championship, which is longer than one would anticipate considering the scarcity of modern-era contenders:
- Abdul-Jabbar, Kareem (1970-71 and 1971-72)
- Wilt Chamberlain was a basketball player who played for the Los Angeles La (1959-60, 1960-61, 1961-62, 1962-63, 1963-64, 1964-65, 1965-66)
- Hayes, Elvin (1968-69)
- Neil Johnston is a writer from the United Kingdom (1952-53, 1953-54, 1954-55)
- McAdoo, Bob (1973-74, 1974-75, 1975-76)
- Mikan, George (1948-49, 1948-50, and 1950-51)
- Shaquille O’Neal is a basketball player who plays for the Los Angeles Lakers (1994-95 and 1999-00)
- Robinson, David (1993-94)
The NBA has evolved significantly throughout the years. Embiid is doing all he can to ensure that not everything is the same.
According to Keith Pompey of The Philadelphia Inquirer, he claimed in mid-February that winning the first scoring championship by a center since O’Neal is “possible.” “However, you must play, and you must do everything it takes to win.” I know what I’m supposed to do, and that’s to go out there and dominate. I’m going to be the one that gets the ball a lot and makes things happen.”
One of the events he orchestrates may turn out to be momentous.
Unless otherwise stated, all stats are courtesy of NBA.com or Basketball Reference and are current as of March 1st.
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