Tuesday NBA Roundup: Joel Embiid Continues March Toward Rookie of the Year
Whether on or off the court, Joel Embiid isn't the least bit boring, so we should've expected him to celebrate his second consecutive Rookie of the Month selection in style.
And that's exactly what he did, sparking his Philadelphia 76ers in a 93-91 victory over reigning Rookie of the Year Karl-Anthony Towns and the rest of the Minnesota Timberwolves.
The win wasn't always pretty: Philadelphia squandered a 26-point second-half lead, allowing Minnesota to complete the monumental comeback when Ricky Rubio hit a game-tying triple with 1.6 seconds remaining. But then Robert Covington happened while two Wolves surrounded Embiid, who was acting as a mere decoy:
That might have been the first time Embiid failed to take center stage.
The rookie center showed off some of his warts against Minnesota, forcing a few ill-advised shots in the face of heavy defensive pressure and turning the ball over at inopportune times. But he still finished with 25 points, eight rebounds, three assists, a steal and two blocks on 20 shots from the field.
Perhaps most importantly, Philadelphia outscored the opposition by 11 points while he was on the court, per NBA.com, and he joined Nik Stauskas as one of only two 76ers starters with a positive plus/minus.
Throughout the night, the big man flashed myriad skills. His defensive acumen came at the expense of Shabazz Muhammad on the block seen below, but he also did a solid job bodying up Towns and helping against Minnesota's many young scoring talents:
Offensively, he scored in countless ways. Whether drawing fouls and converting at the line (8-of-11), knocking down a triple, showing off his post moves with a flashy spin and jump-hook in the paint or bullying Towns for a close-range bucket, he was Philadelphia's featured option.
And the crowd loved it, as Liberty Ballers' Shamus Clancy noted:
Embiid's mystique is immense and for good reason.
Philadelphia waited so long to see what he could do on the basketball court, and the early results have been sublime. He has the fun-loving personality of a national superstar, and he already looks the part of a dominant player. It's not entirely unrealistic to think he could become an All-Star in the Eastern Conference as a rookie, and he's the prohibitive favorite to win Rookie of the Year after he's debuted with a clean sweep of the two Rookie of the Month accolades.
Dario Saric (9.5 points per game) is the only first-year player within a single-digit margin of his scoring average, which increased to 19.2 after Tuesday's 25-spot. Embiid also paces the field in rebounds per game with room to spare. His blocks-per-game tally was equivalent to the combined efforts of Pascal Siakam, Deyonta Davis, Dragan Bender and Marquese Chriss, who occupied the four rungs directly beneath him.
And then we have the advanced metrics.
Embiid's player efficiency rating of 23.0 puts him in elite territory, behind just 22 players among all those who have suited up in at least 20 games. The Sixers' net rating improves by eight points per 100 possessions while he's on the floor. NBA Math's total points added has him as one of only seven rookies with a positive score, and the other six fill minuscule roles in their respective rotations.
At least among current players, he's in a class of his own. We have to turn to basketball history to find apt comparisons, as Scott Howard-Cooper did for NBA.com while ranking Embiid No. 1 on the rookie ladder:
"He just became the sixth player since 1983-84 to reach 18.4 points, 7.4 rebounds and 2.40 blocks through the first 20 appearances -- and the other five are Hall of Famers: Shaquille O'Neal (the last, in 1992-93), Dikembe Mutombo, David Robinson, Hakeem Olajuwon and Ralph Sampson.
Every predecessor did it with at least 658 minutes. Embiid got there in 489. Plus, his six games with 25 points or more are the most for a rookie after 21 games since Blake Griffin also reached the plateau six times in 2010-11.
"
At this point, it's not ridiculous to invoke those types of names.
Embiid seems like a lock to make multiple All-Star squads and compete for MVP trophies—so long as he can stay healthy. He's emerged as one of the league's premier building blocks, regardless of position. And he's doing this while still developing.
For example, who could have expected him to go 27-of-70 (38.6 percent) from deep during the first 23 games of his professional career? As Howard-Cooper remarked, "The next thing anyone knows, the same player who took five three-pointers as a Kansas one-and-done in 2013-14, making one, is not the same player."
Embiid is good for plenty of surprises, both with his burgeoning skill set and (playful) on-court antics. Amping up the crowd after Towns was whistled for a technical foul comes with the territory, as does exhorting the Wells Fargo Center to scream "Trust the process!" as he shoots free throws. For that matter, so too does tooting his own horn:
The Sixers faithful should cheer away. They should vote to their hearts' content. They finally have someone to get excited about, and he's been even better than anyone could've imagined during the first legs of his inexorable march toward stardom.
Isaiah Thomas Does It a Different Way
During the Boston Celtics' victory over the Miami Heat on Friday, Isaiah Thomas exploded for 52 points. But he didn't have any assists, much to the chagrin of people who encourage youths to remove themselves from their yards and think a point guard must always contribute as a distributor.
"It doesn't seem real, and they wanted me to keep going," Thomas said after the game, per ESPN.com's Chris Forsberg. "That's what's great about these teammates. They wanted me to get 50. Jae [Crowder] even wanted me to get 60. I don't know how I was going to do that, but it says a lot about those guys."
Well, Thomas had a different mentality Tuesday night, as CelticsHub.com's Brian Robb noted:
While leading the C's to a 115-104 win, Thomas exploded again—this time at the expense of the Utah Jazz's impressive defense. But the detonation came as he recorded 29 points and a career-high 15 assists while turning the ball over just once, which gave him a combination of stats only 17 players have matched since the 1983-84 campaign.
Words aren't going to do the highlights justice, so watch away:
Maybe we shouldn't doubt his passing ability. Thomas is an offensive machine, and he can adjust to the demands of the situation without sacrificing his output.
What's Wrong with the Pistons?
The Detroit Pistons survived Reggie Jackson's absence, posting an 11-10 record while the starting point guard healed over the first quarter of the campaign.
They haven't survived his return.
During the 16 games since he's debuted, the Pistons have only mustered a 5-11 record, which has them plunging down the Eastern Conference standings. The latest blow was a 121-116 loss to the Indiana Pacers during which they couldn't stop Paul George from tearing apart their overmatched defense.
To be clear, this isn't all Jackson's fault: He hasn't played at the near-All-Star level he reached in 2015-16, but he's far from the only culprit. That was the case again Tuesday night, as he produced 20 points, seven rebounds and 12 assists, yet Detroit was outscored while he was on the floor, per NBA.com.
Jackson does, however, deserve a sizable share of the blame, as Duncan Smith wrote for PistonPowered.com:
"Just a couple of games into Jackson's return, his ball-dominant style of play caused ripples in the Pistons' locker room, leading to a players-only meeting in which touches of the ball were discussed, as well as lack of effort defensively. Granted, the Pistons had to adjust from Ish Smith's distributing pass-first shoot-second style back to Jackson's on-ball attack, but they've made the switch poorly.
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Heading into this latest defeat, Detroit's net rating dipped by 8.5 points per 100 possessions with Jackson on the floor. That shouldn't get worse after George's demolition of the Pistons defense (32 points on 17 shots), but it's concerning all the same.
Should head coach Stan Van Gundy think about letting Jackson lead the second unit and re-inserting Ish Smith into the starting five? After all, the five-man unit of Smith, Kentavious Caldwell-Pope, Marcus Morris, Tobias Harris and Andre Drummond has produced a minus-1.0 net rating, which is much more palatable.
That might be a drastic measure that erodes whatever chemistry this team currently retains. But if the slide continues...
Spurs Are Stifling
The Toronto Raptors entered the night with the league's top offensive rating, but that didn't matter to the San Antonio Spurs. Led by Kawhi Leonard's all-around excellence, Pau Gasol's block party and the team's overall fundamental play, the Spurs held their foes to a mere 82 points during a 110-82 blowout.
Gasol wasn't the only one doing the rejecting, as Jeff McDonald of the San Antonio Express-News pointed out:
Even Davis Bertans got in on the action with a highlight-reel swat to prevent a transition bucket:
Shutting down opponents isn't anything new for a Spurs squad under head coach Gregg Popovich, but this is uncharted territory for Toronto in 2016-17.
Prior to running into the San Antonio buzzsaw, the Raptors had scored at least 91 points in every contest. They'd failed to hit triple digits only six times in 33 games. A performance this putrid was heretofore unimaginable.
Nonetheless, Toronto knocked down only 31 of its 83 shots from the field, which resulted in a meager 37.3 shooting percentage. It made only four three-pointers and couldn't even capitalize on 14 second-chance opportunities.
And if it weren't for DeMar DeRozan, who scored 26 points, the outing might have been even more disastrous.
DeMarcus Cousins Is a Monster
Though a midseason battle between the Sacramento Kings and Denver Nuggets may seem like a nondescript affair, the No. 8 seed in the Western Conference was up for grabs, and Denver had a chance to crawl past its opponent for sole possession.
DeMarcus Cousins wasn't going to let that happen.
Playing against his former head coach, the Sacramento center was on a mission. While the Nuggets alternated defensive schemes to slow him down—they used Wilson Chandler and constant double-teams at first before ceding to his size and deploying Jusuf Nurkic—Cousins kept thriving.
When the final buzzer sounded to mark the Kings' 120-113 victory, Cousins had recorded 31 points, six rebounds and six assists while shooting 10-of-25 from the field, 3-of-7 from downtown and a perfect 8-of-8 from the charity stripe. He never let his emotions get the better of him, even when he found himself facedown after inadvertent contact from Nikola Jokic. And he recorded exactly zero turnovers.
How do you stop a big man capable of doing this?
As the Nuggets found out, you don't.
More Triple-Doubles
Triple-doubles have pervaded the NBA in 2016-17, most notably because Russell Westbrook and James Harden can't stop racking them up. But one team had remained resistant to the trend—the Memphis Grizzlies.
Of course, that was before Julius Randle made the Grizzlies defense his personal plaything, recording 19 points, 14 rebounds and 11 assists in the Los Angeles Lakers' 116-102 victory:
The last player to record a trip-dub against Memphis? That would be Michael Carter-Williams, back in 2014 when he was still playing for the 76ers. But that's not the notable stat that came with Randle's performance.
This was the third triple-double of his career as well as his second of the campaign. And that put him in pretty exclusive company; only the following standouts have recorded at least two such showings in 2016-17:
- Russell Westbrook (16)
- James Harden (9)
- LeBron James (3)
- Giannis Antetokounmpo (2)
- Draymond Green (2)
Now, the Lakers just have to hope he can ascend to that level on a consistent basis.
Tuesday's Final Scores
- 76ers 93, Timberwolves 91
- Celtics 115, Jazz 104
- Pacers 121, Pistons 116
- Spurs 110, Raptors 82
- Kings 120, Nuggets 113
- Dallas Mavericks 113, Washington Wizards 105
- Phoenix Suns 99, Heat 90
- Los Angeles Lakers 116, Memphis Grizzlies 102
Adam Fromal covers the NBA for Bleacher Report. Follow him on Twitter: @fromal09.
Unless otherwise indicated, all stats from Basketball-Reference.com, NBA.com or NBA Math and accurate heading into games on Jan. 3.
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