Joel Embiid’s MVP Case: Last Night
Yeah I didn’t know Kevin Huerter existed until yesterday either. He showered three balls all night and proved to just about everyone how important Joel Embiid is. The difference on defense alone is night and day. Websters defines Most Valuable Player as the player who contributes the most to his or her team’s success when they should just print a color photo of JoJo.
Without Joel Embiid, the Sixers are a shell of what they are with him. I love Mike Muscala, but when slender man could pass as a relative of his, I lose confidence in asking you to play center. That is how important Jo is to this team. Not only does he clean up around the rim on defense, but there might not be a better trailing shooter in the league. Maybe Jokic. A couple more defensive stops combined with a long ball in this game and we easily win. Just his presence alone impacts defense, offense and overall morale. They looked so lethargic against the damn Hawks with an important stretch of game coming up. Even if Jimmy could have hit the last two free throws for free basketball, I had no confidence they could stop that red assassin. Atlanta was red hot from just about every spot on the court. They looked like the 60 win Hawks that Lebron executed!
Leave it to possibly the whitest kid in the NBA to outscore the Sixers. While watching at one point I thought he had a red beanie on but it was actually just his fire truck red hair. Huerter outscored every Sixer except Jimmy for 29 points shooting over 60% from the field AND behind the arc. The craziest thing is our bench outscored the Atlanta bench, and we still lost. Does Embiid playing stop Huerter from going off? Probably not, but I would sure love to see a few chasedown blocks and someone beefier than Moose banging the boards.
As much as Embiid deserves the MVP there is a giant greek human in Milwaukee that the NBA loves to seen win. And James Harden is on an all-time tear. Something tells me we might get screwed over by Silver and the NBA again. Doesn’t matter, Embiid is still the only star I want leading this team to a championship.