For most NBA rookies, the first few weeks after they’re selected in the draft fly by, filled with press conferences, summer league games and settling into their new homes.
This year, however, there is one rookie who hasn’t had that experience.
“I would say kind of boring,” 76ers center Joel Embiid said with a shrug about what his last month has been like. “I couldn’t really do anything, so I was just in bed chilling … that’s basically how my month went.”
Embiid was speaking while resting his 7-foot frame on a pair of black crutches inside the Knicks practice facility Sunday during the league’s annual rookie photo shoot, wearing a blue No. 11 Sixers jersey and a large cast on his right foot painted green, red and yellow — the colors of the national flag of his native Cameroon.
That cast is the reason Embiid has been so bored for the past several weeks. Embiid underwent surgery less than a week before the draft to repair a broken navicular bone, leaving him mostly stuck in bed instead of out enjoying his status as the third overall pick in the draft with a bright future ahead.
But Embiid’s boredom has turned out to be the basketball world’s gain, as it has allowed the gregarious 20-year-old’s colorful personality to come out in his Twitter feed.
“I think I’m kinda goofy,” he said with a smile. “When I step on the court, I’m just straight-faced. I don’t laugh. But off the court, I think I’m kind of goofy and my teammates always like me, and I like having fun.”
He’s proven that over the last month, when his tweets even managed to break through the transaction-heavy NBA news cycles in July. First, he unsuccessfully tried to recruit LeBron James to join him in Philadelphia.
Later, he joked he was going to block James and finally admitted he wasn’t able to get the job done.
Since then, Embiid has moved on to other Twitter pursuits, including requesting the Cavaliers don’t trade his former Kansas Jayhawks teammate Andrew Wiggins, and, more famously, pursuing famous women on the social media site.
After failing to get Kim Kardashian’s attention …
… he moved on to Rihanna, even coming up with a nickname for them (#Johanna) and going on a Twitter “date” with the pop star — only for Rihanna to eventually follow him and favorite a tweet of Embiid at a restaurant eating during their “date.”
When the subject of his Twitter romance came up, Embiid couldn’t help but laugh. He said his quest for Rihanna’s affection had gone pretty well so far.
“She followed me back and she favorited one of my tweets, so that was pretty good,” he said.
But while Embiid has been entertaining the rest of us, he’s been struggling with not being able to play. During the Orlando and Las Vegas summer leagues, Embiid was stuck at home. He’s going to have to get used to it — he’s expected to sit out the entire season. “It’s going to be hard watching,” he said.
“Just watching the summer league … I couldn’t even watch it. I was like, ‘That should be me playing.’ But I have to get through this, and I’m sure when I get back I’ll be better.”
Despite beginning to play basketball just three years ago, Embiid was the runaway candidate to be the top overall selection in June’s draft, thanks to his impressive athletic ability and offensive game.
But the broken navicular bone, discovered just days before the draft, combined with the back injury that knocked him out of the end of his lone season at Kansas, led to people questioning his ability to stay healthy over the long term.
Embiid wound up dropping to the Sixers with the third pick. He picked up plenty of motivation in the process.
“Since I got hurt, people have gotten down on me,” he said. “I like it. Right now, I don’t have any pressure, and I know when I come back I’ll just play my game and just show them, just prove them wrong.”
Embiid said he’s about two weeks away from getting the cast removed, the next step in the recovery process. After meeting with his doctors, he came away unfazed by the diagnosis.
“When I met with the doctor, he told me that it was nothing and I would have a long career, so I had no doubts,” he said.
The Sixers are expected to have a second straight brutal season, with Embiid out and the team’s other lottery selection, Dario Saric, staying in Europe for at least this coming season. But Embiid said he is excited about the direction the team is headed thanks to its young core that also includes Michael Carter-Williams and Nerlens Noel.
“Yeah. I think we’ve got a pretty good foundation to build a good team,” he said, “and I can’t wait to get back and work with them.”