Sixers Tinder: Joel Embiid Is A Future Franchise Cornerstone

Joel Embiid is a potential superstar. Swipe right.

All right, I suppose this blog post requires a little bit more than just that. The above statement is hardly enough for a tweet, and taken out of context, a very awkward tweet at that. Is JoJo even on Tinder? Would he swipe right on rando sports fans? Who knows! Perhaps we should tweet it to him and find out. Maybe he'd swipe right on some lucky lady attending the RTRS Draft Lottery Party and we could all shower him with love.

Shortly after the 2014 NBA Draft, I wrote rather confidently that the Sixers came away from the much-hyped 2014 NBA Draft with its best player, and that remains a statement I fully standby. Granted for much of the class of 2014, rookie seasons were not all that people would have hoped they'd been early on, and granted it's easy to say that when Embiid simply awed pre-game drills and workouts, but Embiid's potential is quite possibly the greatest of everyone from the much-publicized 2014 NBA Draft class. What was once the Andrew Wiggins Sweepstakes became the Joel Embiid Sweepstakes before Embiid's navicular bone injury reverted many perceptions back.

Embiid may not have played this season, but barring a horrible setback, he will play next season, and the future will finally begin. Embiid may not be a star right away, but he should instantly be the best player on the team with potential to be one of the best players in the league, and perhaps more importantly, soon become capable of recruiting big-name free agents to come to Philadelphia. Embiid has all the potential to bring winning basketball back to Philadelphia, and in doing so would become one of the most valuable players the franchise has ever seen, and certainly so in recent memory.

But even without a free agent acquisition, just imagine for a second Embiid playing with Nerlens Noel. The Twin Towers, they'd call them, or JoJo and NoNo, or El oh El, or Flattop And The Vine, something fun like that. It will be a great time, and many opponents will walk away more rejected than myself on prom night. And if that doesn't toot your whistle*, nothing will.

*Never forget the great LB Toot It or Boot It series

There will plenty of time to look ahead more to Joel Embiid's future in 2015-16 and many people smarter and more wise in the ways of basketball than I will pontificate more deeply on his future, but for let's look back at Embiid's 2014-15 highlights and marvel at what may soon be.

This guy's a Sixer. Take a moment to let that sink in, and smile.