From the moment it became clear Joel Embiid was finally going to take the court for the 76ers, fans and media alike peppered the team with inquiries about “Twin Towers” style lineups. Between Embiid, Jahlil Okafor, and Nerlens Noel, the Sixers have a surplus of talent at the center position and need to find ways to showcase all three players.
In last night’s game against the Toronto Raptors, Embiid and Okafor started together for the first time, with mixed (at best) results. Fresh off the convincing loss — don’t let the garbage time push fool you — a dispirited Embiid discussed his role and the partnership with Okafor. A transcription follows below:
Reporter: Were you just not active? Because you didn’t get your first shot in the second quarter.
Embiid: For [the first time] since I’ve been a Sixer, I didn’t trust the process tonight. I was just standing, I wasn’t moving, standing on the perimeter, I wasn’t active on defense.
Reporter: Are you looking forward to getting another crack at it with [Okafor]?
Embiid: It’s whatever the coaches want me to do, I’m going to do it. So, we shall see about that next game.
Reporter: But do you think it’s the best way to go about it, pairing you two?
Embiid: I mean, yeah, we should see what works and what [doesn’t], so I’ll do whatever.
Reporter: Did you feel like you got the touches you got previously?
Embiid: I don’t really care about touches, but like I was saying, I was standing on the perimeter, I wasn’t moving, I wasn’t on the block, I turned the ball over, and didn’t rebound the ball.
This shouldn’t be taken as a complete assessment of his feelings on the partnership; in separate parts of his post-game availability, Embiid expressed disappointment in his personal performance, stressing that playing the four or five was not an excuse for his lack of rebounding.
But it’s worth considering how he and Okafor discussed the potential partnership in months gone by. Embiid, in October:
I think it’s going to be exciting. We played a little bit together today in practice. We’re figuring out how to play with each other. It’s a process and we’ve got trust it.
Okafor, on the same day in October:
I think once we figure it out, we can really dominate together. We were able to flirt with it again today. We accidentally keep ending up on the same team even though Coach keeps telling us to make sure we alternate. But we’re having fun. We’re trying to put some pressure on it because we want to play together.
Embiid, after playing alongside Okafor against the Magic, December 2nd:
I thought we had our moments. We made shots. Obviously, we need to play more together [and they can] let us play with each other.
It starts with how we act together off the court. We’ve known each other since high school, so we’ve had that relationship. That translates to the game and makes it easier.
Okafor, after the same game vs. Orlando:
[Embiid is] a great shooter and people have to respect that. That means their big man is going to be away from the basket and I think that’s why I was able to get a couple easy offensive rebounds.
I think the communication piece went really well — [Embiid] was talking to me; I was talking to him. The floor spacing -- I know that was something people thought might be an issue, but I think that went well with me staying low and him staying high. He hit a couple open threes and I had a couple dunks, so I think those are the things that went well.
These quotes, from both players, are quite different from Embiid’s exchange with reporters from last night. It’s not as though the first major action against Orlando went better from a team perspective — the Sixers lost that game by 17 — but that game featured a 25-point, 10 rebound performance from The Process, and much less hovering on the fringes of play.
Brett Brown has the unenviable job of trying to appease talented, prideful young men who all feel entitled to play their natural position. Barring a miniature role for one of the bigs, playing a pair together is one of the few realistic options to avoid discontent. But asking an impactful, productive player like Embiid to slide over and make room for someone cutting into his operating space is tough, particularly given how much better he’s been than everyone else on the roster.
If you’re going to ask the big dog to shut down the paint on defense and work the glass, you better be prepared to let him eat on the other end. Embiid attempted just six shots against the Raptors, an unacceptably low total regardless of lineup composition.
We’re finally getting a real look at ultra-big pairings, and over-reading small doses of on-court and off-court activity should be avoided. But the Sixers should be careful not to mess with Embiid too much, at the risk of unsettling a franchise talent already excelling in a feature role.