Joel Embiid Makes GQ

The November issue of GQ, covered by LeBron James, is out today. It contains the magazine’s list of the 50 greatest living athletes, including Dr. J and Allen Iverson. That section is followed by “The Ten Who’ll Be Next,” which is comprised of soccer’s Mallory Pugh, Karl-Anthony Towns, and Joel Embiid.

Embiid not only makes the cut in those ten, but gets a full-page image in the issue’s table of contents. The “Ten Who’ll Be Next” isn’t on GQ’s website yet (though it has been delivered to digital devices), but we’ll drop a link in here when it is.

On a separate Embiid-related fashion note, he has cornrows now:

Not to be the fun police, but I am not on board. I said this last year when (an admittedly much shorter) Richaun Holmes started braiding his hair: All big men should have hair as tall as possible for defensive reasons. If you’re seven-foot-plus like Embiid is, you’re already a domineering presence on defense. Smaller offensive players might not be able to even see the rim behind you when you’re up on them. And on top of that if you’re sporting a hairstyle that adds three or four inches to your height, that only decreases the visibility a ballhandler has. Why give up a couple of inches? Because it’s your hair you can do with it what you damn please, of course. But strategically the higher the hair is, the better.