When all hope seemed lost for the City of Brotherly Love, a new hero emerged to shine light on a city that has seen nothing but darkness from its beloved basketball team in recent years.
Joel has a story like no other NBA star, he was born and raised in Cameroon, Africa and came to the states at the age of 16 after being discovered at a camp by NBA player Luc Mbah a Moute. Joel would go on to play high school basketball at The Rock School in Gainesville, Florida and later played two years at the University of Kansas.
Joel Embiid was selected 3rd overall by the Philadelphia 76ers back in 2014 even though the Sixers knew Joel had an injured foot that would keep him out of his entire rookie season as well as the following. The Sixers still took a chance on him due to his dominant collegiate career and the raw talent he possessed.
Since Joel was unable to make an impact on the court his first two years with the Sixers, he found an alternative way to gain attention, his social media accounts.
Joel’s twitter and instagram accounts have some of the funniest material I have ever seen from a professional athlete. To name a few Joel has called out stars like LeBron James to come to Philly to form another infamous trio and proceeded to block him when ‘Bron did not give him any attention.
He’s also a full time ladies man and never shy of expressing his love for Rihanna and even goes as far as to photo shop her in his jersey.
But my personal favorite and most recent shot Joel took was when he threw shade at former pornstar Mia Khalifa when she called out his boys on instagram.
Joel is a savage on social media, which makes him so hard not to like, the guy gives no picks and is willing to say anything to get a laugh, and for that the only thing we can do is love the guy.
Joel also brings a new energy to Philly that has not been around since the days of Iverson. Right now Joel is on track to becoming the Rookie of the Year as well as an NBA All Star. Joel averages 19.4 points per game, which is great for a young center and has a charismatic appearance that is so enjoyable to watch.
Joel has brought hope to a city that has been down for so long. We all know how bad the Sixers have been in recent years and when the process started to play out with the addition of Okafor, Simmons, Rodriguez and Saric, things started to look up. But of course all things are too good to be true when it comes to Philly sports and the Sixers first overall draft pick Ben Simmons ended up breaking his foot prior to the start of the season. (Trust the Process, right?) And yet again Philly fans had to deal with another setback before they can see all their new young talents come together.
The future looks bright for the City of Brotherly Love and at this moment in time there is nothing else to do but Trust the Process.
