BOSTON — Joel Embiid catapulted to the top of his profession this season, and Tuesday he was named the NBA’s Most Valuable Player.
The 76ers star becomes the first Philly player to win the award since Hall of Famer Allen Iverson in 2001 and only the fifth MVP in franchise history. Embiid received 915 points and 73 first-place votes from the media to win easily. Two-time defending MVP and Denver Nuggets center Nikola Jokić was second with 674 points and 15 first-place votes. Giannis Antetokounmpo, a Milwaukee Bucks power forward, was third with 606 points and 12 first-place votes.
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“I don’t even know where to start,” Embiid said to TNT’s host Ernie Johnson Jr. after being announced the winner on the NBA Tip-Off show. “You know, it’s been a long time coming. You know, a lot of hard work. I’ve been through a lot.
“I’m not just talking about basketball. I’m talking about everything as of life, you know my story. You know where I come from, how I got here, and what it took for me to be here. So it feels good. I don’t know what to say. It’s amazing.”
Embiid, a native of Cameroon, came to America to play basketball at the age of 16.
Once he got to the NBA, Embiid sat out his first two seasons because of two foot surgeries. Then he had season-ending surgery to repair a meniscus tear in his left knee during the 2016-17 campaign. Embiid went on to have various other injuries. And he’s sidelined for the start of the Eastern Conference semifinals series against the Boston Celtics with a sprained right knee.
But Embiid has been able to overcome injuries and turned his 2022-23 season into his best yet.
He won a second straight scoring title by averaging 33.1 points and was eighth in rebounds (10.2) and seventh in blocks (1.7). He was also named Eastern Conference player of the month three times.
“He’s the best player in the league!” P.J. Tucker said, before repeating it for emphasis. “I guess it’s always a debate [on who should have won], but I don’t think there was a debate all year.
“Complete domination all year.”
The honor comes after Embiid finished as MVP runner-up in 2021 and 2022.
The Sixers believed he should have won it last season. That’s when Embiid (30.6 points in 2021-22) not only became the first center to win a scoring title since Hall of Famer Shaquille O’Neal (29.7 in 1999-2000), but also was the first center to average more than 30 points since Moses Malone (31.1 in 1981-82).
But Jokić won the award after becoming the first player in league history to record 2,000 points (2,004), 1,000 rebounds (1,019), and 500 assists (584) in a single season.
It was hard to argue against the Nuggets center getting the nod over Embiid in 2021 because of games played. Jokić played in every game of a season reduced to 72 contests because of the COVID-19 pandemic. Embiid missed 21.
But now, Embiid has gotten over the hump, joining Hall of Famers Wilt Chamberlain, Julius Erving, Malone, and Iverson as the only Sixers to win the award. And it’s a testament to how far he has come since the Sixers hired Doc Rivers as coach on Oct. 3, 2020.
Before then, Embiid was an elite player who was often out of shape. But having coached several Hall of Famers — including Kevin Garnett, Ray Allen, Paul Pierce, and Tracy McGrady — Rivers knows that work ethic and leadership skills are needed to achieve greatness.
So Rivers was blunt with Embiid, stressing changes to the loner’s approach. He asked Embiid to become a better player and teammate. The coach also found ways to make Embiid more impactful on the court, positioning him at the free-throw line and facing the basket, where it’s tougher for teams to double-team him.
» READ MORE: Dominating both ends of the court, Sixers’ Joel Embiid should dethrone Nikola Jokić as MVP
“I think it started last year with his conditioning and understanding how serious you have to be in this game,” Rivers said. “How serious, not just as a player, but just the little things you do to impact your entire team.
“This year, I think he came in in better shape, even doing more with his teammates and leading. He’s still young, and he’s still growing up right in front of our eyes. It’s a pretty cool thing.”
In the process, the 29-year-old became the sixth foreign player to win the award, joining Jokić (Serbia), Antetokounmpo (Greece), Dirk Nowitzki (Germany), Steve Nash (Canada), and Hakeem Olajuwon (Nigeria). He’s also the third consecutive foreign MVP winner. Antetokoumpo won the award during the 2018-19 and 2019-20 seasons.
It’s not surprising that Embiid stood in the way of Jokić becoming the fourth player to win three straight MVP awards.
“Nobody could guard him all year,” Tucker said of Embiid. “He’s destroying teams’ double- and triple-teams, whatever they threw at him. Nobody could stop him and to still have a really successful season, finishing third in the East, I don’t know what else to say.
“To get all those double- and triple-teams and still be able to score in the 50s and 30s and 40s every night is pretty incredible.”
Embiid finished with career highs of 59 points and seven blocks against the Utah Jazz in November. He would add 53- and 52-point games during the season. Embiid also scored in the 30s 31 times and in the 40s 10 times.
“It isn’t even about the scoring for me,” Paul Reed said. “It’s about the defensive end. I saw him make some big-time defensive plays that are not normal. Like going in and contesting Jayson Tatum and DeMar DeRozan at the rim, and those dudes are aggressive [while] attacking guys.
“A guy like me, I’m a big. I respect that type of stuff.”
» READ MORE: Overcoming Joel Embiid’s absence, Sixers take Game 1, 119-115, behind James Harden’s 45 points
But will people respect Embiid’s MVP award now while he’s sidelined during the playoffs?
The seventh-year veteran, who has a long history of being injured, sprained the lateral collateral ligament in his right knee on April 20 in Game 3 of the Sixers’ first-round series against the Brooklyn Nets.
“There’s no way winning MVP that there’s any damper,” Rivers said of the award being announced while Embiid is injured. “[It is] an amazing achievement. Obviously, you would rather see him do it and playing, but they picked the date to give him the award, we don’t.”
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