Skill for skill, he is the best player ever to play for the 76ers. If he is not the MVP this season, somebody tampered with the ballots. He is in the prime of his career. He is, by reasonable NBA standards, healthy.
And Joel Embiid is about to be down to his last chance to prove he is capable of ever leading the only pro franchise he has known to a championship.
This is it.
The clock is down to single figures.
That doesn’t mean Embiid must grand-marshal a parade this spring, but it does mean he has to have the Sixers deep into an NBA championship series within the next two years. That’s how long James Harden, a verified superstar closer to the Hall of Fame than he is, has loosely committed to be the backcourt shooter and open-man finder able to complement the best center in the sport.
“Everybody is on the same page,” Embiid told the press during the All-Star break in Cleveland. “We all are trying to win a championship. So that’s the goal.”
The Sixers were good enough to challenge for a championship before adding Harden, then surged to near the top of the wagering board once the trade with Brooklyn was official. Yet they often had seemed championship-ready during Embiid’s previous seven seasons, only to disappoint. There were reasons, most not involving Embiid. In 2018, they lost to a better team, the Celtics, in the conference finals. The next year, they fell to eventual champion Toronto in a Game 7, Kawhi Leonard’s game-winner doing a drum solo on the rim before being caught in the twine. In 2020, that goof-ball bubble season, Ben Simmons was injured. Last year, there was a Game 7 loss to Atlanta and Simmons, not Embiid, was viewed as the culprit.
But as spectacular as Embiid has been early in his career, he has been prone to late-possession turnovers and late-playoff-game flubbed shots. He knows that. It’s why he made certain to include self-criticism in his famous commentary after the Sixers’ last playoff game, the one that so irritated Simmons that he would never play another game for the Sixers.
“I’ll be honest, I thought the turning point was when we had an open shot and we made one free throw and we missed the other, and then they came down and scored,” Embiid said at the time of Simmons’ famous decline of a late-game dunk opportunity. “And we didn’t get a good possession on the other end. And then from there, down four, it’s on me, and I turn the ball over and try to make something happen from the perimeter.”
Exactly.
Simmons’ legendary turtle-act changed the flow of the game, but Embiid was bloody awful for much of that series, particularly late in games. That means, at 27, he is just about out of postseason mulligans. Basketball is too unpredictable to demand a championship from any one player. A bad call, twisted ankle or missed free throw can happen at any time. And if a team is in the NBA Finals, it is by definition facing one of the best clubs ever assembled. Charles Barkley never won a championship. Nor did Allen Iverson. It happens. But Embiid is a max-contract player, and while this season he is earning every perk, he must soon push the Sixers to within a game or two of geysers of champagne.
He was not able to do that with Simmons, even though, following that 2018 disappointment, he predicted they both would have multiple chances to play for a title. He wasn’t able to do that when surrounded by Simmons, Tobias Harris and Jimmy Butler on what seemed like a super-team. And if he doesn’t win or come close to one with Harden in the next two years, he will be nearly 30 before he has another chance, Harden’s contract will be expired, and the Sixers will be onto another coach.
Embiid is a franchise treasure, on and off the court. Ideally, he will play his entire career with the franchise and then pose for the statue-sculptor. Since he has the option to remain with the Sixers through 2027, that’s the most likely scenario. But – true story – every once in a while an NBA superstar worms his way out of a contract to go somewhere else to try to win a championship. So the Sixers have to brace for that, too.
Anyway, with the All-Star break behind and Harden’s hamstring close to functional, it begins again for Joel Embiid. The Sixers are well-coached, deep in talent, neither old nor young, willing to accept various roles, able to defend and one of the best teams in the NBA.
If Embiid doesn’t turn the ball over and have the yips on short putts, the Sixers will be in for a lengthy postseason.
If he does, even the best player in franchise history can’t be trusted with many more chances to try it again.
Contact Jack McCaffery at jmccaffery@21st-centurymedia.com
"come" - Google News
February 25, 2022 at 05:54PM
https://ift.tt/o6lWOBa
McCaffery: For Joel Embiid, time has come to lead Sixers to greatness - The Times Herald
"come" - Google News
https://ift.tt/EWGjrV6
Shoes Man Tutorial
Pos News Update
Meme Update
Korean Entertainment News
Japan News Update
Bagikan Berita Ini
0 Response to "McCaffery: For Joel Embiid, time has come to lead Sixers to greatness - The Times Herald"
Post a Comment