How Joel Embiid’s Foot Changed the NBA Landscape

Leading up to the 2014 NBA Draft, the debate raged on: Who should go #1?  The main contenders were Joel Embiid, Andrew Wiggins, and Jabari Parker.  Heading into the college basketball season, the grand prize was deemed to be Andrew Wiggins.  However, over the course of the season and pre-draft workouts Embiid had blown away the competition, and was the clear choice.

Nine days before the draft, the Cleveland Cavaliers were blown away with Joel Embiid’s workout and the front office, including Dan Gilbert himself, were leaning toward taking Embiid with the first pick.  Three days later the presumptive world as we knew it coming came crashing down: Joel Embiid broke the navicular bone in his foot and was looking at a four to eight month recovery.

Ultimately, the Cavaliers selected Andrew Wiggins with the first pick.  What ensued was the consummation of a trade that contends for the title of worst-kept-secret in NBA history: the Cavaliers flipped Wiggins and change to the Minnesota Timberwolves for Kevin Love.  The trade had been put into speculation during the draft, and Lebron added fuel to the fire when he left out Andrew Wiggins’ name in his penned letter regarding rejoining the Cavs.

LeBron wanted to win in the present, and LeBron doesn’t do rookies.  It is not inconceivable that a factor in James’ decision to return to the Cavs was the insider knowledge that Wiggins for Love was already a done deal.

And the rest is history.

But let’s revisit that history and imagine what would have happened had Embiid never broken his foot.

Perhaps not much would have changed and the only difference would have been Embiid as the centerpiece to a Kevin Love trade package.  But what if the Cavaliers viewed Joel Embiid as too good a prospect to do the Love swap?

The 2014 NBA draft class was highly touted before any of the prospects even reached the college level.  Articles like this, dubbing Wiggins the best prospect since LeBron, were commonplace at the time.  Embiid had taken over the throne atop the Kingdom of the 2014 NBA draft class.  Embiid was consistently compared to Hakeem Olajuwon.  Imagine the Cavaliers’ vision of their could-be Big 3 for the foreseeable future: Newly maxed Kyrie Irving at point guard, Eastern Conference Super Mario Gold Star LeBron James on the wing, and an elite defensive true 7-footer who shimmies like Dream and has 3-point range.  You could not possibly hand pick a better Big 3 as the foundation of your franchise.

Would Joel Embiid, without a broken foot, have simply been too good to trade away, even for LeBron’s hand picked desired teammate?

Would LeBron had returned to Cleveland knowing that any trade involving Embiid was a non-starter and that stance was non-negotiable?

You may think any team will just do whatever it is they need to to secure LeBron James’ services, but we are talking about Dan Gilbert here…

As for the Wolves, is it possible any deal involving Love to Cleveland was predicated on Andrew Wiggins being the return?  Would the Wolves had accepted the trade if Embiid was the guy they were getting?  Is it possible that they would have been scared off simply by Embiid’s back?

The LeBron-James-led-Cleveland-Cavaliers-2.0 squad has reached three consecutive NBA finals, winning once.  How different would this be if we swap out Embiid for Kevin Love?  Perhaps not very, as I imagine they would have won the East each season and had a chance in 2015 with a healthy Embiid.  How different would the 2017-18 Cavs be with Embiid instead of Love?  Perhaps not very, as the Cavs will most likely end up a top two seed in the East and once again reach the NBA finals.  But the Cavs are on the older side, and if Cleveland called up Philadelphia today and offered Kevin Love straight up for Embiid, the 6ers would say “don’t call here ever again,” and hang up.

The other domino that knocks down plenty more dominos in all this is Andrew Wiggins as a member of the 76ers.  Had Cleveland taken Embiid, Wiggins would have fallen to the third pick.  Jabari Parker was accused of tanking his workout with the Cavs in an effort to fall to the Bucks with the second pick.  Parker, a Chicago native, preferred to play close to home as a member of the Bucks.  The feeling was mutual, as Milwaukee recognized their constraints as a small market team and theorized the best way to not have a star player leave town for a big market was to draft someone from the area.  (The best thing that ever happened to the Cavs is that LeBron was born in Ohio.)

This gets us to Wiggins sitting there for the 76ers with the 3rd pick in 2014.  It was no secret before the season even began that the 6ers were tanking, and it was rather common knowledge the apple of the organization’s eye was Andrew Wiggins.

The sentiment never changed.  Leading up to draft night the 6ers were desperately were trying to trade for the first pick in order to secure Wiggins’ services, and later in 2014 Brett Brown admitted that prior to the draft lottery, the organization planned to select Andrew Wiggins.

So how does this change things?

For one, Andrew Wiggins would have contributed to the 76ers his first two years in the NBA.  While his contribution during his rookie and sophomore seasons were lackluster, he still would have provided more value than Joel Embiid did in those seasons.  After Wiggins’ rookie year the 6ers had the third worst record and ultimately landed the 3rd pick and selected Jahlil Okafor.  Let’s imagine all of that stays the same.

It is really the next season that could be drastically different.  With sophomore year Wiggins as opposed to no Embiid, the 6ers may not end up with the best lottery odds and don’t end up landing Ben Simmons.  Let’s just say they once again end up with the 3rd pick.  I realize such a scenario is quite arbitrary, but let’s just roll with it.  Danny Ainge had the foresight to select Jaylon Brown with the 3rd pick in 2016 among a jumbled tier of players spanning 3-8 after the clear top two, and Brown, in hindsight, is undoubtedly the best of the bunch.  The pick was somewhat of a surprise, and it didn’t receive the best grade, in isolation and in comparison to subsequent picks, among some draft analysts.  But what really matters is that while it is no surprise that Danny Ainge nailed that pick, do you really trust Bryan Colangelo to have done the same?  Bryan Colangelo, this guy.

I’m by no means writing off Markelle Fultz and believe he will develop into a very good NBA player, but when you look at what Jayson Tatum is doing in Boston and add in that Colangelo gave up the Lakers/Kings pick to get up to #1, aka directly getting owned by Ainge, then that lowers my confidence in Colagelo having the same prospect third on his board as Ainge did in 2016.

But Philly is thriving on the backs’ of Embiid and Simmons.  They currently sit 5th in the Eastern Conference with a record of 11-8.  Sam Hinkie and The Process have essentially been vindicated thanks to Embiid’s on court dominance and Simmons budding star.

As previously alluded to, there was a time we all debated who would be better between Wiggins and Embiid.  We now know.  It is Embiid in a blowout (without factoring in health).

Here is a quick comparison of Wiggins and Embiid, thanks to Basketball-Reference:

Despite Wiggins’ new max contract, he has never actually played to a level that warrants such a financial investment in his talents.  Here are his RPM ranks every season he has been in the NBA:

RPM certainly has it’s flaws and is by no means the end all be all.  Still, you cannot tell me anyone posting these types of RPM numbers is worthy of a max.  And no, I am not a Wiggins hater, I want him to succeed.

All I’m saying is swap out Embiid and Simmons for Wiggins and any of Dragan Bender, Kris Dunn, Buddy Hield, Jamal Murray or Marquese Chriss and we are not vindicating Hinkie, or claiming the 76ers have the brightest future in the entire NBA.  Even giving Colangelo the benefit of the doubt and swapping in Wiggins and Jaylon Brown does not get us to the 76ers sitting at 11-8 with the 5th seed and possessing a seemingly limitless future, on the condition Embiid stays (relatively) healthy.

Of course we don’t live in this alternate universe, because Embiid did in fact break his foot, and the rest of the dominoes fell from there.

#TrustTheProcess