Philadelphia 76ers Joel Embiid is an All-Star, an MVP, a future Hall-of-Famer and one of the best players in the NBA when healthy. But is he the greatest player of all time? Or at least, was he on track to be?
Embiid believes that if he had been able to stay healthy throughout his career he would be the GOAT, he revealed in an interview with David Marchese of the New York Times.
“I think I’m that talented,” Embiid said. “Obviously you need to win championships, and to win championships you need other guys. You can’t do it by yourself. I want to win so bad. But if you don’t, you just got to understand that as long as you care about the right stuff, if it doesn’t happen, maybe it wasn’t meant to happen.”
“If you think about it, the thing that stopped me all these years is just freak injuries,” Embiid continued. “Every single playoffs, regular season, people falling on my knee or breaking my face — twice. It’s always freak injuries at the wrong time.”
Could Joel Embiid have been the GOAT?
This is quite the assertion from Embiid. Yes, he's had some especially bad injury luck. Most notably, he missed the first two seasons of his career after he was drafted recovering from a broken foot. He also had a season-ending knee injury in his rookie season in 2016-17, missed two postseason games in 2022 due to a concussion/facial fractures and most recently was diagnosed with Bell's palsy and was dealing with migraines and blurred vision during the 76ers first round exit this past season against the New York Knicks.
But even when Embiid has been fully healthy, the 76ers still haven't been able to get over the hump and advance past the Eastern Conference Semifinals. Yes, he could have had more help from his teammates, but if Embiid truly deserved to be in the GOAT conversation he probably could have taken his teams past the second round of the playoffs at least once.
Perhaps most importantly, Embiid has never even been considered the best at his own position in the league right now, let alone best player overall in the league. Three-time MVP Nikola Jokic is the consensus best center in the NBA over Embiid, putting up better regular season statistics and leading the Denver Nuggets to a title in 2023.
Embiid can't be faulted for believing in himself, and maybe things would be different if he had a bit better luck with injuries, but he's flat-out wrong. Yes, he's an incredible player and one of the most skilled big men in NBA history, but he's a perennial playoff under-performer. Maybe this is the year things finally change for Embiid with the new-look 76ers signing Paul George in free agency. But as of now, Embiid should be nowhere near the GOAT conversation.
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