The Philadelphia 76ers' Joel Embiid has been playing like the best player on the planet. Obviously, you may argue that a few have been just as excellent, if not better than him this year, but it'll be difficult to conclude that anyone has been much better than him. All he's shown this season is that he's the best or second-best big man in the NBA, and that he's more than capable of being a championship team's top option.
Last season, Joel Embiid had a decent chance of winning the league's MVP award. Unfortunately for him, he has suffered from ailments throughout his career, which has hampered his ability to earn awards like this.
Joel Embiid's predicament is complicated by the fact that he is prone to injury. It's a terrible reality for not only him, but also for the rest of the basketball world, because each time he's hurt and off the floor, it's bad for the game. It's excellent for the game of basketball when he is out on the floor and demonstrating why he is perhaps the best player in the world.
Joel Embiid will have to find a way to remain healthy for the whole season if he wants to win this award. He appears to be keeping up with his training at the moment, and he appears to be in much better shape than he typically is. It would be terrible if he gets hurt after the All-Star break, but it's difficult to predict he won't, given how many times he's been hurt in his career.
Let's move on from the sad injuries and look at why Joel Embiid has been the greatest player on the planet this season and why he deserves to win the MVP award.
Winning the MVP is never easy. There's a lot of bias that goes into voting at times and no one really knows what exactly voters are looking for. This year in particular is going to be very interesting considering teams that have MVP-caliber players haven't exactly been killing it in the standings. It's going to be tough for a few guys to win this MVP award, and how they perform down the stretch is undoubtedly going to be the deciding factor on if they win the award. As we have seen in the past, there have obviously been some snubs in terms of guys who should have won the award who didn't, so anything is really possible. This is also a season where you can probably make an argument that five or so guys do have a legit chance at winning the award.
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Joel Embiid MVP
2. Has been the best for the previous two months
For the first half of the season, he wasn't exactly playing horrible basketball, but what he's done in the last two months is unthinkable. Outside of Giannis Antetokounmpo, there's been no doubt that he's been the best player in the world since Christmas.
What he has done for this Sixers team is truly irreplaceable, and the voters must take that into consideration.
Voters should seek for players that take over in the second half of the season, since that is when basketball begins to truly take off. Obviously, things pick up for a lot of teams following the All-Star break, as they understand they need to start playing their best basketball if they want to win an NBA championship and prepare for the playoffs.
For the past two months, Joel Embiid has undoubtedly been the best player in the world, and as previously said, you can only compare him to one player: Giannis Antetokounmpo. Aside from that, no one has been playing the caliber of basketball that any of these two men have, which is why they are both MVP favorites.
1. In the absence of Ben Simmons, he stepped up
Ben Simmons was clearly not the ideal fit for the Philadelphia Sixers. As much as Philadelphia fans want to claim he was the worst thing that could have ever happened to their franchise, he was still someone who could be used in the regular season, and he was certainly going to give you some decent minutes in the regular season. Unfortunately for Philadelphia and Joel Embiid, he did not do what he does in the regular season during the playoffs.
Tobias Harris is another player on the Philadelphia Sixers who is occasionally overrated. He's a good player, but he's not that second guy who can take over a game, which is why the Sixers went out and acquired James Harden. Throughout the regular season, Joel Embiid has largely done this with little to no assistance, as the Sixers' only other major contributors have been from Tobias Harris and Tyrese Maxey.
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