National Basketball Association

Joel Embiid's Two-Way Dominance Is Something Special

Updated Mar. 4, 2020 3:40 p.m. ET

Fansided, Christopher Kline/FanSided via The Sixer Sense

Joel Embiid‘s dominance on both ends of the court is making him one of the league’s best big men — and he’s still just 22 years old.

Jan 11, 2017; Philadelphia, PA, USA; Philadelphia 76ers center Joel Embiid (21) warms up before action against the New York Knicks at Wells Fargo Center. Mandatory Credit: Bill Streicher-USA TODAY Sports

The Process. It’s a phrase that has been preached in Philadelphia as if it was the sacred code of a small, castaway cult on the city’s periphery for several years now. The 76ers have been a team banking on unproven assets, while also driving home years of rebuilding on the whim that a highly controversial pick would eventually transpire in their favor. Sam Hinkie lost his job over the radical institution he initiated, and the team has floundered like none others in recent years.

Now, that era has all but passed. Joel Embiid is finally healthy, and The Process is already one of the league’s most influential contributors at the five. The Sixers won 10 games last season. As of right now, they’ve won 10 of their last 14.

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As Jonathan Tjarks detailed in his column for The Ringer, Embiid’s prowess on both sides of the floor is something that’s rarely seen in the modern era, and something that — without hyperbole — is placing him among the NBA’s best interior players.

via Jonathan Tjarks on The Ringer

In a league that has become so inherently centered around versatility, Embiid’s combination of skills have complimented both the trends of basketball itself, as well as the needs of a shaky defensive unit.

He’s a legitimate cornerstone on both ends of the floor — and that in and of itself is a rarity.

Philadelphia 76ers center Joel Embiid. Mandatory Credit: Bill Streicher-USA TODAY Sports

Embiid’s defensive presence:

Embiid is still getting his feet under him in some aspects of the game, but his defensive instincts are incredibly advanced for somebody of his age. Standing at 7-2, his mobility on rotations underneath the rim and his ability to recover off of dribble drives when switched onto the perimeter is something that very few bigs can match.

He’s a hulking shot blocking presence given his size, and is versatile enough to not get caught as a liability elsewhere on the floor. He’s already among the league’s leading shot blockers in just 27 minutes per contest, tallying 2.5 per game — trailing solely Rudy Gobert among the league leaders, should he qualify based on playing time.

When analyzing the league’s most notable big men, very few reach the echelon on which Embiid produces — a truly impressive feat given how, relatively, new the Cameroonian product is to the game itself. Anthony Davis, Marc Gasol, DeAndre Jordan, Hassan Whiteside, and the aforementioned Gobert are the most prominent names that come to mind. Davis and Gasol are the only two who possess offensive games of Embiid’s caliber.

When you analyze the numbers, the extent of Embiid’s presence becomes even clearer.

Defensive Rating

via The Riner

via Jonathan Tjarks on The Ringer

While this is obviously an imperfect statistic, it’s still one worth noting. Over the last 13 games prior to Friday night’s defeat to the Houston Rockets, the Sixers possessed the greatest disparity between on and off-court production on the defensive end when comparing the league’s best big men.

Starts from Jahlil Okafor and poor defensive players in the second unit could obviously sway that number a bit, but the immense difference between the team’s effectiveness with Embiid on the court versus his time on the bench is virtually unarguable, even upon the eye test alone.

He’s the quarterback, per se, of a unit that generates impressive effort on the defensive side of the ball, and his ability to provide such a reliable fall back option around the rim is a massive boost in confidence when encouraging effort from players on the perimeter.

The Sixers have boasted defensive efficiency that rivals that of the Golden State Warriors in recent weeks. The vast majority of that credit goes to Embiid.

Rim protection

Perhaps the best measure of a player’s defensive impact at the five spot in his effectiveness around the basket. While Embiid can switch onto the perimeter, the imperative nature of strong rim protection makes altering shots around the basket a far more important trait. While Embiid’s blocked shots are impressive enough in detailing his impact, the far-more-relevant statistical analysis stems from the opponents field goal percentages at the basket when Embiid is on the floor.

via Jonathan Tjarks on The Ringer

The gap between Embiid and Gobert here is worth noting. While stats obviously don’t tell the entire story here — as I would argue in adamant fashion — Gobert’s length in the painted area makes him one of the most difficult defenders to maneuver around when operating around the basket.

Embiid’s innate sense of awareness on the defensive end has allowed him to bother shots in a manner that is rarely seen among today’s bigs. He boasts some slight flaws in terms of decision making at times, but he has counteracted a lot of those year one mistakes with an athletic presence that’s difficult for offenses to work around.

He’s already among the league’s elite defenders, and pushing himself — legitimately — into the Defensive Player of the Conversation, an almost unheralded conversation for a rookie. It’s even more unheralded considering that it’s Embiid’s first competitive basketball in two years.

Philadelphia 76ers center Joel Embiid. Mandatory Credit: Bill Streicher-USA TODAY Sports

Embiid’s offensive impact:

What truly pushes Embiid into that elite tier of big men, though, is his offensive contributions. It’s incredibly rare to find players capable of providing a team’s cornerstone on both sides of the basketball, and Embiid has done so with impressive efficiency this season.

In limited minutes, he has pushed the team’s offense at a level that allows it to be competitive, while anchoring their defense in a manner that has made the Sixers one of the more impressive young rosters in the league.

Largely considered a defensive force upon entering the draft out of Kansas, Embiid’s improvement over the course of his injury rehab has been otherworldly. He added a reliable 3-point jump shot, hitting on 36.7 percent of over 3 attempts per game, and has developed an array of post moves that — given his stature — are nearly impossible to defend effectively at the rim.

Embiid is tall enough to shoot over defenders with relative ease in mid-range scenarios as well, and has shown an incredible penchant for using up-fakes to blow by the defender and handle the ball with impressive control in straight-line drives to the hoop. He’s showing moves that DeMarcus Cousins, Anthony Davis, and Karl-Anthony Towns had previously monopolized on the offensive side of the ball, and doing so with a relative efficiency that’s almost unheard of from a first year prospect.

Usage Rate v.s. True Shooting Efficiency

via Jonathan Tjarks of The Ringer

via Jonathan Tjarks on The Ringer

Embiid’s usage rate of 36.1 is second among all centers in the league behind DeMarcus Cousins, as well as the third overall in the league as a whole. For a rookie coming off of two years of injury-riddled rest, the simple volume in which Embiid is producing during his time on the floor is impressive.

In addition to that, Embiid is doing so with a true shooting efficiency that outclasses that of Cousins.

Embiid is already out-pacing the more polished offensive weapons in that regard, while doing so with a far more diverse role than rim-runners like DeAndre Jordan, Dwight Howard and Gobert, whose numbers are skewed in their favor given both their lower usage rate and easier shot selection.

Embiid’s two-way versatility is integral in today’s game.

In a league that is shifting towards perimeter-oriented basketball, big men have had to adapt — and Embiid seems to one of the leading figures in that revolution. He has the size and strength to dominate the post from a physical perspective, while still boasting the quickness and lateral mobility to step onto the perimeter and simply overwhelm the vast majority of defenders thrown his way.

That, combined with plus footwork and one of the league’s most impressive defensive presences, legitimately puts him into the forefront of the conversation for the best big man in the league. He has DeMarcus Cousins-esque credentials on offense, and is keeping on pace with Defensive Player of the Year frontrunners on the other end of the floor. The only players remotely in his realm on both sides of the ball would likely be Anthony Davis and Marc Gasol, both of whom are being outperformed by Embiid in several metrics.

Embiid is establishing himself as one of the league’s best big men — on restricted minutes with a team that has gone through multiple experiments with his role in a crowded frontcourt.

The number players capable of matching up with Embiid in a vacuum is notably small, as his ability to carry the Sixers in such a variety of facets is outright unmatched in some areas. We’re witnessing the evolution of somebody who, in the coming years, has a very real chance to be the best five man in the league.