Coach Hanlen on Embiid: ‘We’ve spent a lot of time on the hook... and on the floater this summer’

On a new episode of “Out of Site” we have coach Drew Hanlen back now for the third consecutive offseason. Somehow each time we have Coach on the pod, Joel Embiid takes another massive step forward.

In this pod we get to things like how Coach feels watching a couple of top All-NBA clients like Joel and Jayston Tatum battle in the playoffs. Is he torn between his two top clients?

How does Joel handle the trash talk from Jayson on their text chains after another crushing playoff defeat to the Boston Celtics?

Joel can say things like ‘I have two scoring titles and an MVP’ but Jayson can say ‘we’re 3-0 vs. you guys in the playoffs.’ But will coach Hanlen instigate on text chains the night before big games?

Why didn’t Joel have a couch in his apartment the first three seasons of his career?!

What were Joel’s first goals as a player back in the day? (It’s kind of funny how relatively not ambitious they were compared to how great he’s truly become.)

Drew reveals that Embiid said something “powerful” after winning his first MVP. Embiid said “man, to be honest with ya, I’d give back this MVP just to have a healthy postseason.” That part is kind of sad, to be honest.

But did he sense that Joel was gonna go for the MVP last summer or not?

Is Drew buying this annoying “The Knicks are monitoring the Embid situation?” What about Joel’s former agent and current Knicks President, Leon Rose, being at Joel’s wedding? Any smoke to that relationship? Could this guy really get a wandering eye?

What about the Bradley Beal thing, how hard did Joel take it when the Sixers had to tell him they don’t want to try and trade for his long-time summer workout partner? Would Beal have waived his no-trade clause to play in Philly?

“If it was possible [to acquire Beal] they woulda probably got that one done. I don’t think it was as real as some people may have reported out on social media,” Hanlen tells us.

We ask Drew’s opinion about what Joel might feel regarding Harden’s situation. Is he hoping for James to return? “There’s never been any beef or drama between Joel and James. They actually love each other.”

So of course you know we had to follow up and ask coach “so why didn’t James go to the wedding!?”

What was Joel’s drink of choice on his wedding night? Does he drink generally?

Tyrese Maxey is a new full-time client of Hanlen’s!

After the break we get to coach Hanlen’s new full-time client (!!!) Tyrese Maxey and what he’s been working on this summer. “First and foremost, I love [Tyrese] as a person. He’s like literally the best guy. Such great energy, he’s my first workout of every morning. We go at 6:30 a.m. At 6:30 a.m. he’s ready to get after it and go.... craves being coached.”

(Never heard that sentiment before!)

Let’s talk about Embiid vs. Jokic. There was a Ramona Shelburne anecdote on ESPN that Joel watched the NBA Finals and liked what Denver was doing offensively, with so much movement. What can we learn about that?

Are there elements coach Hanlen takes from Jokic’s game that he’d recommend to Joel?

What can Nick Nurse bring to the table that the team didn’t do as much last year? What are one or two things that Hanlen loved about the old Brett Brown offenses? Is there something they got away from under Doc Rivers that they could reimplement to find success and be better prepared for playoff basketball?

Oh and that old Ringer video making fun of Joel and his trainer back in the day! Did Coach know that was a #coldtake at the time?

“The Ringer, [they’re] mainly Celtics fans....” Coach gets it. He just gets it!

If there’s one thing from Jokic that you could give Joel and one thing from Tyrese Halliburton that you could give Maxey, what would it be? Here are a couple fun snippets from Coach:

“With the new offense that Nick [Nurse] is gonna be installing, we think that Jo is gonna get a lot more easy looks around the basket. Instead of having to create one-on-two, one-on-three him just isoing and being a dominant big, we’re hoping that he gets more back screens, and curl cuts, slips, and screens where he catches the ball at 4-8 feet instead of always having to catch the ball at 15-18. So we’ve spent a lot of time on the hook shot this summer, on the floater this summer. And things we haven’t really worked on the last couple years just because he hasn’t got those shots....

“I give Tyrese trouble on this all the time too, but James was really the only great passer on the team last year.”

Okay, no more teasers. Give the full pod a listen. There’s tons of great stuff in there.