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Philadelphia 76ers superstar Joel Embiid recently published his own essay for The Players' Tribune. One of the most astonishing bits in the writeup is Embiid's recounting of how he first got into basketball, and how quickly things escalated for the Sixers stud.
According to the 24-year-old, he was only months into learning the sport when he got his first offer to play in the U.S.
“And I know people sort of know my story, but I don’t think they really understand how crazy it is. Because I had just started playing basketball literally — literally — three months before I got an offer to come play high school ball in Florida,” Embiid wrote.
To further belabor his point, the 7-foot Cameroonian claimed that at that point, he had not even mastered one of the most essential aspects of the sport — dribbling.
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“I could dunk, but I had no handle,” he added.
His inadequacies put him in a very awkward position. Unfortunately for Embiid, his basketball career in the country did not start on the best of terms.
“So I went to the practice on the first day, and I was so bad that the coach kicked me out of the gym. I didn’t know what I was doing. I was so skinny, so soft. But the worst part was that all my own teammates were seriously pointing and laughing at me, like the asshole kids in the movies about high school.”
“Man, I went back to my dorm and cried. I was like, This is crazy. What am I even doing here? I can’t play. I’m going home,” Embiid recounted.
With how far Embiid has gone this early in his career, those dudes are definitely not laughing now.
