Embiid To Lead

Sixers center knows he’s capable of carrying team in postseason

PHILADELPHIA » The first 65 games of the Sixers’ season are over, into history, mostly forgotten, never again to matter.

That leaves eight more, a hastily arranged postseason, and an offer from Joel Embiid to lead the way.

“I know what I’m capable of,” Embiid said Tuesday. “I know what my teammates think of me. I know I’m capable of carrying the team.”

He’s always been capable of carrying a team. It’s why he was the No. 3 overall pick in the 2014 draft, why he has been a three-time All-Star, why he has rated place in the NBA’s superstar class. But he hasn’t always done it. Rather, he has helped win two playoff series in his first six NBA seasons. The other times, he was either injured, tired, overweight, surrounded by inferior talent or just outplayed.

To this point, all of that was understandable, a cost of developing a dominant big man. It was a process, pardon the profanity. It has not so much been that Embiid has failed to deliver a championship or even a Final Four in a career that is close to half over as much as it was a reasonable wait for that moment.

When the Sixers resume play Aug. 1, against the Pacers in Orlando, it will be that moment. It will be that moment because Embiid will have had nearly five months of load management time to reach peak condition. It will be that moment because other Sixers, including Ben Simmons, will have had time to recover from injury. It will be that moment because Embiid is 26, no longer a project. It will be that moment because since training camp, the Sixers have yelled that it was that moment, saying all along that they are championshipready.

Embiid seemed to grasp all of that Tuesday, when he met the press for the first time in months. He grasped it and owned it and promised to make it right this time.

For that, though, he has one demand: The ball.

“It’s all about me being assertive,” he said. “If I feel like I’m not getting the ball, I just have to talk to them and do what I have to do. But at the end of the day, I should never be in position to complain about not getting the ball just because of who I am. I believe I can carry the team. I just have to take mat

MATT SLOCUM — THE ASSOCIATED PRESS Joel Embiid, dribbling in a game against Detroit March 11, has pledged to be “more assertive” on the offensive end when the NBA season resumes next month.