mid-March win over the Lakers, Stanley Johnson, L.A.’s
6' 7", 243-pound forward, wrapped up Embiid on a layup
attempt, leaving him to grab at a sore back that plagued
him in the final weeks of the season. “The pain he plays
through,” says Embiid’s longtime trainer, Drew Hanlen,
“it’s f---ing ridiculous.”
Basketball is a subject Embiid is more comfortable
with. “I just love to play,” he says, grinning. There’s a
purity to Embiid rarely seen in stars of his caliber. He
builds relationships with GMs, he says, “because I don’t
want to get traded.” After getting a taste of Embiid’s tal-
ent in a 31-game stint during the 2016–17
season, his first in the league, Philadelphia
offered him a five-year, $146.5 million
extension. “I was like, ‘These dumbasses
are going to give me $150 million?’ ” says
Embiid. “S---, I’ll take it.” Even now, as
franchise valuations soar into the billions,
he is almost embarrassed by his paycheck.
“It’s an insane amount of money,” he says.
Reminded that the NBA is a star-driven
league, Embiid, who last summer signed a
second extension, worth $196 million over
four years, shrugs. “Not being from here,
not growing up with all this, it’s just kind
of wild. I don’t know what to do with it.”
As he speaks, Embiid glances down
at his phone, stealing a moment of a
Cavaliers-Raptors game. This is the real
Embiid. A trip to CBS qualifies as a night
out. Recently, he asked a Sixers assistant
what he did on road trips. Because I
don’t do anything, Embiid deadpanned.
He watches video. Lots of video. “He’s
a real student of the game,” says Sixers
coach Doc Rivers. Embiid perks up when asked about
Nikola Joki ́c, one of his fiercest competitors for MVP this
season. “I’m a big fan,” he says. “I’m extremely happy that
when you talk about the best players in the league, it’s all
bigs that are up there.” In 2020, after getting swept by
Boston in the f irst round, Embiid determined he was too
one-dimensional. “I was just a post-up player,” he says.
“That made me easier to guard.” Embiid began study-
ing perimeter players. Hanlen says he cut tape of every
made field goal by Michael Jordan. Then Kobe Bryant.
Then Dirk Nowitzki. Then Kevin Durant. What Hanlen
couldn’t find on Synergy or YouTube he got from team
archives. “We handpicked pieces of their games that we
thought he could emulate,” says Hanlen. They researched
Finals MVPs, noting how many attempted at least
20 shots per game during playoff runs. Jordan, Hanlen
points out, never attempted fewer than 22. “These guys
put their teams on their backs,” says Hanlen.
When a summerlong standoff between Ben Simmons
and the Sixers extended into the season, Embiid embraced
it as an opportunity. “Drew said to me, ‘Can you carry a
team? Can you do what is necessary to make sure yourteam wins games?’ ” says Embiid. “Obviously, I’m not
doing anything alone. But I wanted to see what I could do.”
What he’s done, by any account, has been impressive.
Philadelphia, without a three-time All-Star in Simmons
for more than half this season, remained among the
top contenders in the Eastern Conference. Embiid was
a night-in, night-out force and continued to evolve as
a deep threat. While L’Affaire Simmons was daily fod-
der for debate shows, Embiid declined to engage in it,
refusing to criticize Simmons while insisting the Sixers,
even without their 6' 11" point guard, had enough to win.“[Embiid] was hell-bent on making sure our guys knew
we were going to win this year,” says Rivers. “If Ben
wanted to join us, great. If he didn’t, great. We’re win-
ning. I don’t want to hear that we’re not winning.”T
HE FISSURE BETWEEN Simmons and the Sixers is
often traced back to last year’s playoffs. In the confer-
ence semifinals, Philadelphia was eliminated by Atlanta
in seven games. Simmons didn’t make a shot in the fourth
quarters of five of them. With the Sixers down two in the
final minutes of Game 7, Simmons passed up an open
layup on a possession that ended with Matisse Thybulle
getting fouled on a more difficult dunk attempt. When
asked after the series whether Philadelphia could win
with Simmons at point guard, Rivers said, “I don’t know
the answer to that right now.” Embiid, when quizzed
about the turning point in Game 7, said, “We had an
open shot and we made one free throw.”
Embiid hates that quote, along with the suggestion that
it somehow fractured his relationship with Simmons.
Not because he didn’t say it. But because it’s not all he
62 said. In the same answer he criticized Thybulle, who
“HE WAS HELL-BENT ON MAKING
SURE OUR GUYS KNEW,”
SAYS DOC RIVERS OF EMBIID,“WE WERE
GOING TO WIN
THIS YEAR.”