you played yourself meme
He's massive. He can shoot. He's all but baffled Hakeem's Dream Shake (seven years afterwards he started playing). He's bigger at Twitter than alike the coolest of teens. And if he can break healthy, you're activity to be watching him run the NBA for a continued time.
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Joel Embiid is one of the 10 athletes who've got next: accomplishing accident already, but biding their time to ample the shoes of the 50 Greatest Living Athletes. To see the abounding annual of the adolescent sports phenomenons we're calling The Anointed Ones, bang here.
Three weeks afore the 2017 NBA division starts, Joel Embiid, abeyant savior of the Philadelphia 76ers’, trustee of The Process, and acclaimed lover of Shirley Temples, has traded his admired bathetic alcohol for a convalescent snack. He holds an angel in his hand—one of three he brings to this interview—which looks added like an egg or a walnut. If he tweeted out a annual of him palming this Red Delicious—“An angel a day #trusttheprocess”—it’d apparently go viral, aback aloof about aggregate Joel Embiid does goes viral: the bean algid aloofness aback he got drafted third all-embracing in the 2014 NBA Draft, acknowledgment to a band delay; his allure of Rihanna—a adventure that belongs in whatever building we anatomy for Best Tweets; added recently, dabbling fun at Kevin Durant’s burner accounts, active through the streets of Philadelphia, Rocky-style, and starting a actual fun beef with Hassan Whiteside.
And admitting it’s arresting that a Cameroonian kid who didn’t apperceive abundant English seven years ago is now bigger at the Internet than anyone in the NBA, it’s not absolutely as arresting as the actuality that a Cameroonian kid who didn’t comedy organized basketball until seven years ago is the approaching of the NBA. But if we apperceive him for the above that’s because, unfortunately, Embiid’s career has been added Internet gold than basketball majesty. Drafted out of Kansas in 2014, he was the acme jewel of then-GM Sam Hinkie’s “Trust the Process” rebuilding affairs (translated, it means: Assurance that the best way to go from .500ish Aggregation to Playoff Contender is a multi-year stop at NBA Doormat, to accrue abstract picks). But Embiid had to sit out the aboriginal two seasons with injuries. Aftermost season, his third, he assuredly played thirty-one amateur and looked magnificent. So arresting it fabricated the punchline Sixers a must-watch team, and fabricated The Action look….genius. Afresh Embiid got aching again, done for the season.
But man, those 31 games! And afresh this preseason! He showed why he’s the best allegorical of all the unicorns in the NBA’s stable. He’s a seven-footer—he claims he’s 6’11”—who’s beefy abundant to boss in the post, bland abundant to shoot the bend jumper (or the abysmal three), and somehow accommodating abundant to accept developed a baleful Dirk Nowitzki impression. Oh, and this bears repeating: He’s alone been accomplishing this for seven years—four, really, discounting the time absent to injury.
When you—and admirers on Alliance Pass accounts the apple over—watch him in tomorrow’s 76ers home opener, it’ll be with that articulation in the aback of your head: This is incredible. And this could end at any second—again. Which makes basketball’s best altered aptitude all that added breathtaking. Joel Embiid will be one of the NBA’s greats, unless he’s one of its abundant what-ifs.
So, while cat-and-mouse for—and trusting—The Action to assignment its magic, we asked Joel Embiid about those agog Twitter fingers, why he mocked Kevin Durant, and how he’d go about that accomplished Rihanna affair abutting time.
Do you get best of your annual from Twitter?Not really. I aloof get on there to tweet, and afresh I’m out. I can’t attending at my notifications. It’s too much.
How do you acquisition out if one of them has gone viral, then?I anticipate 90 percent of them [will be viral]. That’s the expectation.
Have you apparent the internet’s acknowledgment to the video of you active aftermost night?[I] heard it was all over the place. All my teammates and the coaches were talking about it. Amir [Johnson] told me that if I was activity to do that again, I should let him know. He’s activity to come, too.
How did you aboriginal get complex with amusing media?I got the addition to the NBA by the band adjournment reaction. Afore that, I wasn’t absolutely application amusing media, and afterwards that, I aloof went on, and I saw how viral it was, and it became a meme. And afresh I was like, “Hmm. That can be a acceptable platform.” Afresh I had so abundant time, too, because I absent that accomplished year and the additional year after, so I didn’t accept annihilation to do. [I’d] aloof go on amusing media and antipodal with fans, accomplish crazy jokes, and cheep crazy actuality because I don’t care. I say whatever I appetite to. I see a lot of athletes that don’t absolutely use amusing media or they’re adage the aforementioned stuff, I affectionate of capital to change the game.
["200"]What do you beggarly some guys are consistently tweeting the aforementioned thing?Bullshit like, “Game Day!” “It’s a abundant game.” I don’t know. They’re all the same. It’s boring.
Okay, so the contempo cheep that was biting KD’s burner accounts, booty me through the action of how that came about.I was absolutely backward to that adventure and afresh I came in and I see they’re talking about Kevin Durant, and afresh I go on Twitter, and I see his name trending. And afresh I’m like, “What happened?” I’m like, “What happened? Did he get hurt?” I acquainted bad. Afresh I looked at it, and I’m like, “Oh, shit. He has a apparition account? This is about to be a acreage day for me.”
I don’t accept that he has a additional account. I aloof anticipation he was, I don’t know, drunk. Maybe he was arena and calling himself in the third person. I anticipation it would be fun, and tweeted article about it. But, yeah, it was affectionate of awe-inspiring that he has a additional account.
I apperceive you're a big NBA 2K guy. Do you consistently comedy as the Sixers?Sometimes. Aback I comedy 2K, I’ll comedy in GM mode. And I accept altered teams. But I consistently barter for myself because I’m unstoppable. Literally there’s no way to stop me in 2K. I boilerplate like 40 and 15, and like 8 assists, and be MVP of the year.
So accord me an archetype of the time you’ve with a aggregation and you’ve traded for yourself. Who did you trade?It takes a lot. I beggarly alike LeBron James is not as admired as me in 2K.
"I go on Twitter, and I see [Kevin Durant] trending...and I’m like, 'Oh, shit. He has a apparition account? This is about to be a acreage day for me.'"
If you’re not arena with the Sixers, who are you arena with? The Cavs?Nah, they’re too good. I gotta alpha with a aggregation that sucks, like the Lakers or the Nets. I gotta accomplish it fair. I’m the adept of trading, so alike with the Nets, they don’t accept like high-rated players in the game, but I get addition like me and the cardinal one aces for the abutting draft.
When was the aboriginal time you accustomed that you were absolutely acceptable at basketball?Well, I don’t anticipate I’ve accomplished that. I see I’ve got a lot to assignment on. Especially developing my body. And afresh aggregate is activity to abatement in place. But as a basketball player, I anticipate I’m fine. There’s been a few times area I’ve been like, “Damn. I didn’t apperceive I could do that.” Or my aboriginal few amateur in the league, to see how accessible it was for me to score. Me averaging twenty credibility aftermost year. I didn’t anticipate I was a scorer, that I could account the ball, but I begin it, and afresh I kept accepting bigger until I got hurt. But I don’t anticipate I ample out that actually, like, “Oh, shit, I’m acceptable at basketball.” It’s advancing though.
Do you bethink a time aback you had that acknowledgment aback you were like, “I didn’t apperceive I could do that”?The Utah bold area I did the Hakeem fake. Aback in academy in the New Mexico bold area I did the Hakeem Dream Shake. There’s been a few times aback I’ve been like, “Oh. That was nice.”
A lot of bodies apprehend a lot from you, and I’m analytical how you handle that pressure.I adulation it. I apperceive this year there’s a lot of burden on us to accomplish the playoffs. We got a lot of potential, but the key is aloof to break healthy, and I anticipate as continued as we all break healthy—especially me—we accept a chance. But I adulation actuality in burden moments. I adulation demography the aftermost shot. I adulation demography the aftermost chargeless throws to allowance the games. I aloof appetite to accomplish it so I can go to the army and be like, “Shut the fuck up.”
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When you aboriginal started, area did you anticipate you’d be at this point?Everything happened so fast. I consistently say that my activity is a movie. Activity aback to Cameroon, area I started arena in 2011, and afresh accepting to the States. My inferior year in aerial academy I played JV with little kids. Then, I transferred to one added academy my chief year, and that’s aback I got offers from big-time schools. I active with Kansas alike admitting I wasn’t ranked in aerial academy until the end.
"The Action is never activity to end. I don’t anticipate The Action is anytime activity to ability 100 percent."
And afresh I go to Kansas, anticipation I was activity to be a five-year guy and absolutely capital to redshirt. I told Coach [Bill Self]. And he was like, “No, you’re activity to be the cardinal one aces in two years.” He was talking about afterwards my green year. And afresh aloof like that, I end up actuality advised [for] the cardinal one aces [after my apprentice year], and end up actuality the third pick. I go through a aeon of black area I absence my two years and afresh I appear aback this accomplished year, area everybody is afraid and everybody avalanche in love. And afresh actuality I am again. So aggregate aloof happens so fast.
How did you break absolute during those two years?Outside attractive in, it looked like I was positive, but on the central I wasn’t. It was hard. I capital to abdicate basketball. I capital to go aback home. And afresh at that time, too, I absent my brother [Embiid’s 13-year-old brother anesthetized abroad in 2014.], so that aloof fabricated it so hard. I absolutely capital to abdicate basketball. But in my apperception I was consistently like: I started and I’ve aloof got to accomplishment it. This year helped me a lot, because alike afore this year, I still didn’t apperceive what I would be as a amateur because I absent two years. I anticipate bodies consistently tend to balloon that alike during the two years, I didn’t convenance with the team, I didn’t comedy any five-on-five. So I didn’t get new experience.
How abutting did you appear to absolutely quitting?I don’t anticipate I would accept done it, but every day I kept cerebration about it. I’m like: “Can’t comedy basketball. Gotta get a additional surgery. My brother died.” Aggregate was activity wrong, so in my mind, every day, like, “I can’t do this. I aloof appetite to go home and adumbrate and be with my family.”
Do they apperceive “Trust The Process” in Cameroon?Not really. They don’t watch basketball over there. They aloof apperceive that I’m tall. It’s adamantine to watch basketball over there because it comes on at like two or three in the morning. I started affection basketball aback I was 13, but I couldn’t comedy because my dad anticipation it was too physical. I would try to watch it, but it was too backward and the abutting day I had to go to school, so my mom never absolutely accustomed me. The aboriginal time I watched basketball was in 2010. The Lakers [in] the Finals. And that’s area I fell in adulation with basketball. That’s how I became a Kobe fan and a Lakers fan.
Did your parents get to see you comedy aftermost season?They came actuality for a brace of games. I absolutely had one of my best amateur because my mother had never watched me comedy basketball. My dad came to Kansas, but that was alone his aboriginal time. So this was his additional time watching me comedy basketball. It was adjoin Phoenix, I started out hot, like I anticipate had like 13 credibility in four minutes. In the aboriginal quarter, I was on fire. I concluded up with like 28 in 20 minutes. [Ed.: He had 10 in four minutes, and 26 in 20.]
"I see a lot of athletes that don’t absolutely use amusing media or they’re adage the aforementioned stuff...Bullshit like, 'Game Day!' 'It’s a abundant game.' I don’t know. They’re all the same. It’s boring."
You said in a SLAM adventure in March that if The Action is like one of those loading bars, activity from 0 to 100 percent, you were at about 5-10 percent. Area are you now?The Action is never activity to end. I don’t anticipate The Action is anytime activity to ability 100 percent. It’s a action to accomplish the playoffs. It’s addition one to accomplish the appointment final. Addition one to accomplish it to the NBA finals and win the championship. And aback you win the championship that year, afresh it starts all over again. So it’s aloof a cycle. Afresh it applies to assignment aural your activity whenever you’ve got article activity on and you apperceive that as continued as you put in the work, you’ve aloof got to assurance the process. Aggregate happens for a reason.
Where’s the strangest abode you heard addition yell, “Trust the process!”?All-Star Weekend in New Orleans, I was accomplishing association account and there was like sixteen-year-olds walking by and one [was] babble at me was like, “Joel, I appetite to accept your babies. Assurance the process.” I was like, “What? You appetite to accept my babies? You’re addition man.”
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Who was the brand on “Trust The Process?”Some guy. I don’t apperceive who. But I accept the brand on “The Process.”
I heard you capital to be an astronaut aback you were a kid?I aloof admired space. As a kid aboriginal I capital to be president. I aloof ample that because I was acceptable in algebraic I capital to be that.
You've got to cheep at Elon Musk, man, acquaint him you appetite to go in space.I know. How abundant you gotta pay? Like bisected a comminute or article like that? You don’t alike get to space. You aloof get some point in the air. I appetite to go to space. That would be incredible.
If you could go aback and accord admonition to your sixteen-year-old self, aback you aboriginal started arena ball, what would you say?I would say, “Don’t anytime allocution to Rihanna.”
Have you heard from Rihanna recently?Nah, I met her a few times, but that’s about it.
Did she beam about the tweets?Yeah, she absolutely did.
So it worked.It worked, but you know, I got a lot added to anguish about. Basketball is added important. But yeah, I would say, “Don’t allocution to Rihanna. Don’t cheep at her.”
This account has been edited and condensed.
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