Following just one season at Kansas, Joel Embiid made the jump to the NBA where he was selected with the third overall pick by the Philadelphia 76ers in the 2014 NBA Draft.
However, Embiid recently revealed to Andrew Joseph of For The Win that he had initially wanted to stay another year at the collegiate level but was “pushed” otherwise to enter the NBA.
“It's funny. I don't think anybody knows this story, but I actually decided to stay because I loved this place so much. But I was kind of pushed away.”
There is no clarity as to what convinced him to declare himself eligible for the NBA Draft, but the fact that he wanted to stay could have changed things drastically for his career outlook. It could have provided him another year at the collegiate level to refine his game before going to the professional ranks.
This also brings into question about how it could have had an impact on his health that saw him experience a pair of broken foot injuries that forced him to miss his first two NBA campaigns. That said, it's hard to assess whether that decision could have changed that aspect of his career.
However, these foot injuries did provide Embiid time to work on his craft while fine-tuning his offensive skills set to help him become the promising talent he is now. What this does more than anything else is give a sense of how close he was to staying another year at Kansas.
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