Joel Embiid

Joel Embiid's 2023-24 season — 34.7 points, 11.0 rebounds, 5.6 assists, and 52.9% shooting across 39 games — was the most statistically efficient individual performance at the center position in recent NBA history, constrained only by the injury management that has always limited his availability. He won the MVP that year, cementing a narrative arc that began with years of organizational rebuilding in Philadelphia and ended with individual statistical dominance that no contemporary center could match.

His scoring at the center position is genuinely novel. Embiid generates points from three-point range (38.8% that season), from the mid-range, from the post, and from the free throw line at a rate that makes traditional frontcourt defenders structurally obsolete. At 7-feet with a 7-foot-5 wingspan, he shoots over virtually anyone who contests him; at his mobility level, he draws fouls by beating slower bigs off the dribble. The combination makes him uniquely difficult to contain with any single defensive approach.

The limitation that defines his career is availability. He has never played 80 games in a regular season — across more than 10 professional years, injury management has consistently kept him to 50-70% of available games. The tension between his per-game dominance and his per-season output is the central biographical fact of his career, and every organizational decision Philadelphia has made in the past decade has been calibrated around it.

Embiid came to the NBA from the University of Kansas, where he played one season of college basketball in 2013-14 before Philadelphia selected him 3rd overall in 2014.