Sixers news: Dwight Howard on how he'll tame Joel Embiid's playful side

With Dwight Howard recently deciding to take his talents to the Philadelphia 76ers, one of the biggest questions is on his relationship with Joel Embiid.

With Dwight Howard recently deciding to take his talents to the Philadelphia 76ers, one of the biggest questions that emerged was how he would fit alongside Sixers superstar big man Joel Embiid. Both players have been known to possess a rather jovial type of approach to the game, and for his part, Howard expressed how he intends to tame Embiid's playful side.

According to Howard, he intends to draw from his own personal experiences to serve as a mentor for Philadelphia's franchise guy:

“I think the things Joel does is great. It makes other opponents upset, it keeps him locked in and the team plays better,” Howard said, via ESPN's Tim Bontemps. “Now will there be times when we all have to be a little bit more serious? Yes. And that’s something we’ll all have to learn together. How to be in certain situations. But I don’t think that’s a part of sacrifice. I think that’s a part of just understanding time and place.

“And I think that will be good for me to help show some of the younger Sixers guys because I have been in that position before where people thought I wasn’t focused or that I was playing too much. Maybe for the people on the outside it did look like I was playing around too much. So it’s just finding ways to do things right for the team, and I think we’ll do that this year.”

One of the biggest criticisms people had on Howard early in his career is how he didn't know when to flip the switch, so to speak. He's a very fun-loving guy, and at times, it felt like he didn't know when it was time to get serious. As it appears, he seems to have overcome that fault in the past few seasons — an indication of how he has matured over the years.

The way that he embraced a bench role for the Los Angeles Lakers last season, and how it resulted in Howard's first ever championship serves as testament to this fact. He has another opportunity to prove this on the Sixers.

To some degree, this has also been a flaw that many believe Embiid possesses. Having been through the same process himself, Howard appears to be in a great position to help the Sixers star in unlocking a different level to his game.