The Philadelphia 76ers have been so bad in recent years that they have had the opportunity to make very high draft picks that they have used to take very talented big men.
And they have seen those big men get injured so often that they remain bad enough to make high draft picks. So when will that all end?
Soon, if Joel Embiid is able to just stay on the floor for a while.
As VietBet customers are well aware, 76ers fans are so starved for something positive coming off a TEN-win campaign that the debut of Embiid, which was a long time in coming, was anticipated with a highly unusual level of eagerness.
And he did not disappoint, showing signs that he could well become a dominant force, at either end of the floor.
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What is rather incredible for pro basketball bettors to consider is that Embiid never even played basketball until 2010. But he was so athletic that everyone assumed he was better than he was, or more accurately, that he would eventually become a lot better.
He got by on that potential for a while. He was offered a scholarship to a prep school without having played very much hoops and did not play very much there until he was a senior. At Kansas, it was evident that he had the potential to become a monster shot-blocker, but his offense wasn’t polished. And even though he injured himself in an NBA pre-draft event, he was still taken with the third pick in the draft by the Sixers, even though they had not done so much as work him out or interview him.
They saw what a lot of people did – a potentially game-changing pivot man, which is something in relatively short supply in the NBA. But as pro basketball bettors at VietBet noticed, it seemingly took him forever to get on the floor. Embiid had not one, but TWO surgeries on his right foot, which caused him to miss his first two NBA seasons. But his debut against Oklahoma City made it worth the wait.
Embiid had his playing time closely monitored so as not to overextend him, but in 22 minutes he scored 20 points, with seven rebounds and two blocked shots. He showed both an inside and outside game on the offensive end. To give you some perspective, he never scored 20 points in a game in college.
Of course, there are going to be a lot of questions about keeping him healthy, just as there were with Greg Oden, the former #1 overall pick who played sparingly in the early part of his NBA career, or even Embiid’s Philadelphia teammate, Nerlens Noel, another big shot-swatter who had to undergo knee surgery.
It’s probably too much to ask for the Sixers to have all of their young, promising big guys together at once, but when Ben Simmons, a versatile 6-10 performer who was this year’s top pick in the NBA Draft, is able to come off HIS foot injury, pro basketball bettors might bear witness to what these kids are really capable of doing. And that, my friends, may truly be something to see.
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By Charles Jay