Sixers' Joel Embiid Tells Tony Bradley He's Not Rudy Gobert in Practice
Philadelphia 76ers center Joel Embiid might be a quiet guy in real life. When he's on the court, though, he's the furthest thing from shy. From the start of his NBA career, Joel Embiid has established himself not only as one of the most dominant bigs in the game but he's also notorious for being a trash-talker on the court as well.
Former Utah Jazz center Tony Bradley has experienced Embiid's mind games firsthand this week as he joined the Sixers for training camp after getting traded a couple of weeks ago. Although Bradley made it clear the trash-talking doesn't necessarily bother him when he's on the court, he did get a chuckle out of one of Embiid's tactics.
For the first three seasons of his NBA career, Bradley played for the Utah Jazz. Outside of three games last season, Bradley never saw the floor as a starter primarily because he was behind one of the league's best centers in Rudy Gobert.
As Bradley has had the opportunity to learn under Gobert for the last few seasons, the young veteran center was grateful to compete against one of the best at the position in practice. Now that he's in Philly, Bradley will compete against Embiid, who has made it clear he's not the guy Bradley played against in Utah.
"The very first day we were guarding each other, and I think after we finished, he says something like 'this isn't Rudy [Gobert] -- this ain't Rudy," Bradley explained. "I just laughed because it's different."
Bradley then went on to praise Embiid for how good he's looked so far this offseason. While everybody around the NBA knows Embiid is one of the best at the big man position, experiencing his skills firsthand is an entirely different situation, which admittedly left Bradley shocked at times this week.
Justin Grasso covers the Philadelphia 76ers for Sports Illustrated. You can follow him on Twitter: @JGrasso_
