Embiid may be in position for an MVP season

CAMDEN, N.J. » By the middle of the last 76ers’ season, the chants for Joel Embiid had changed.

When he was introduced with the starting lineups, when he was at the foul line, when he dunked, when he swished a three-pointer, it was no longer, “Trust the process, trust the process.” Whenever he was dominating a game, and even when he wasn’t, the chants had become, “MVP, MVP, MVP.”

At one point, it all made sense. Just a year removed from a 28-win mess, the Sixers were soaring in the standings and in credibility. Embiid was the reason. Finally healthy, he was an All-Star, and he was improving. And while he might never have nosed to the front of the race as the NBA’s best player, or even the most dominating, there was no one more valuable to a winning team. MVP? “To me,” Brett Brown said late last season, “he is.”

The Sixers’ coach was going to say that anyway. But he had plenty of responsible company. Embiid would finish a disappointing 12th in the MVP race, which was won by James Harden, with LeBron James and Anthony Davis completing the trifecta. He’d slipped a bit later in the year. Others played better. When Harden won, there was a minimum of public grumbling. It might have been different had Embiid not missed 19 games, plenty for load management, the last eight because he’d had his eye-bone broken in an on-court collision with Markelle Fultz.

If healthier, Embiid would have finished in the top 10, if not the top five. And given that additional experience, the first fully healthy offseason he has enjoyed as a pro and his continued physical growth, he could be in the top three this season.

From there, with a break or two, he could be the first Sixers NBA MVP since Allen Iverson in 2001.

“I think Joel Embiid is going to be dominant this year,” Brown said. “He blew me away with the workouts I watched this summer.”

So here it goes again. “I have a lot of expectations for this season,” Embiid said. “This is the first time I was healthy during the summertime. And coming into the season, I just want to be myself. I was excited as soon as the last season was over. I was mad that we lost. But I thought that I could then get to work on my game and my body and get better.

“And it is going to be a great year.”

Some of that is standard training-camp babble. But for every reason, Embiid should be ready for a career-defining, MVPlevel season. He’s 24, and will be 25 before the playoffs. For that, he can neither be characterized as young nor aging. Though Harden, Russell Westbrook and Steph Curry, the last three MVPs, were slightly older, Embiid is at the roughly the age Kevin Durant was when he won the 2014 award at age 26.

Already, Embiid is entering his fifth NBA season. Injuries may have cost him all of his first two and then dulled the two that he has played. But they do not stop time. He’s a fifthyear pro. That’s what he is. And if he is to have a 10year pro career, he is already nearing its midway point. Given his durability issues, it’s unlikely he will make it to 15 years. But if so, he will be entering the middle 10 years of his career. By any timetable, he is entering his prime.

He could be better some other time. But Embiid, who has never retreated from expectations, knows there is not likely to be a better chance to prove that no one plays better basketball. He has seen no other season as this one where he’s been as healthy, or when the Sixers have him surrounded with as much talent, or when he will be more comfortable in a role with the only NBA coach he has known.

“Just looking at myself and the way I have been playing against all the guys since we’ve all been back, I feel I have gotten much better,” Embiid said. “One of my (points of) emphasis will be to not make turnovers, to not make mistakes, to not make bad decisions. I want to simplify the game, and let the game come to me. That’s the biggest thing.”

Embiid was 12th in the NBA in scoring last season and seventh in rebounding average. To boost his candidacy, he’d need to inch higher on those lists. He can’t be sixth in turnovers again, as he was last season. If he again is fourth in shot-blocking, or better, it will help. According to Bovada, Embiid is 16-to-1 to be the MVP, tied with Kyrie Irving and Westbrook for eighth on the board behind James, Davis, Giannis Antetokounmpo, Harden, Durant, Kawhi Leonard and Curry. The Sixers will need him to be at least at that level if they expect improvement over their 52-win, second-playoff-round season.

“I’d be really surprised if he isn’t,” T.J. McConnell said. “We don’t win half of our games without Joel. And that’s just the truth. He is really valuable to our team. So if he’s not up for MVP consideration, I think that’s a problem.”

Brown and the Sixers are using the phrase “Bully Ball” to describe what they expect Embiid to provide this season. If he does that, they might walk together forever.

“Take less threes, play more in the paint, dunking, using the low zone more, doing more posting up,” Embiid said. “I will use my power and my skill every time I touch the ball.”

Will that make him the MVP? It could. At the minimum, it would give Sixers fans plenty of reasons to chant.