Joel Embiid Feels He Can Reach ‘Another Level’ for Next Season
To say that Joel Embiid has consistently improved over the years would be an understatement. While the Philadelphia 76ers’ star entered the NBA with high expectations when he was finally healthy and cleared to play, the big man had a lot of work to do before establishing himself as one of the league’s most dominant centers.
Embiid put in the work year after year. While he was already an All-Star by the time he played in his second true season in 2017-2018, Embiid had a steady progression from then on. By the end of the 2021-2022 regular season, Embiid earned his fifth-straight All-Star nod.
In addition, he was considered an MVP finalist for the second-straight season. While Embiid had a strong campaign, he came second in the voting once again, losing the award to Denver Nuggets big man Nikola Jokic.
Although he missed out on winning the MVP award again, Embiid hoped to make a deep run in the playoffs to make up for the personal loss. Unfortunately, the Sixers came up short after losing their Game 6 matchup to the Miami Heat in the second round. As expected, Embiid wasn’t satisfied.
“My goal is to win it all,” said Embiid last Thursday after the Sixers dropped Game 6. As somebody who tends to use shortcomings as motivation to be better, Embiid vows to come back stronger in 2022-2023 as he believes his ceiling is higher.
“Every single season, I feel like I’ve gotten better, and there is still another level that I can reach,” Embiid explained. “I mentioned it a couple of weeks ago; Every postseason, I’ve seen adjustments that have kind of made me want to make changes in what I work on during the summer.”
Embiid recalled the 2020 playoff run as a key stepping stone in his offseason development. After the Boston Celtics swept Philadelphia in the first round, Embiid did everything he could to level up ahead for the next season. Sure enough, the big man earned his first MVP finalist nod.
Then when the Sixers lost to the Atlanta Hawks in the second round of the 2021 NBA Playoffs, Embiid was gunning for Most Valuable Player once again and became the NBA’s scoring champion. Now, Embiid is looking to use another second-round exit as motivation moving forward.
“You look at in the second round, the way they played me, every time I had the ball, there was two or three guys on me,” Embiid finished. “I couldn’t drive to the basket because everything was just crowded. I guess the goal this summer is to be better and to figure it out just like I did when I lost to Boston. I felt like I was a post player, and I came back with more perimeter game to open up everything. I just saw something that helped me a lot during this postseason. So, I gotta get better.”
Justin Grasso covers the Philadelphia 76ers for Sports Illustrated. You can follow him for live updates on Twitter: @JGrasso_.
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