Philadelphia 76ers star big man Joel Embiid had himself a terrific season averaging 28.5 points and 10.6 rebounds while leading the team to the No. 1 seed in the Eastern Conference. He finished as an MVP finalist for his dominance out on the floor.
However, the big fella lost out on the MVP award to Denver Nuggets star Nikola Jokic. A big factor in the voting was that Jokic played all 72 games and Embiid only played in 51 due to a variety of injuries.
If Embiid did not get hurt, he probably would have been an easy choice for the award due to the season he and the Sixers did have. That is why the fans in the City of Brotherly Love give him the MVP love whenever he is on the floor and he definitely appreciates them for it.
“I love the fans,” said Embiid. “They have always supported me. My teammates all year, they’ve been telling me. All I really care about, like I said stuff out of my control, but if people around me, my teammates, they believe that I am, I guess you can say that’s good enough. I care more about who I’m around.”
[exco_embed id=”d8b9c085-4226-44f1-8495-36ad4e2aa62d”]
Embiid then turned his attention to the media who are the ones who vote for the MVP award. He understands that he can’t change their votes and he just has to focus on being able to help Philadelphia win this championship that they believe they can win in 2021.
“You guys make those decisions and I can’t control it, but like I said that’s not what I focus on,” he finished. “I haven’t really thought about it for the second half of the season. I just wanted to get ready for this moment which is the playoffs to go on this run to try to win a championship.”
The Sixers will head to Atlanta for Game 3 with the Hawks on Friday.
This post originally appeared on Sixers Wire! Follow us on Facebook!
[mm-video type=playlist id=01f09kz5ecxq9bp57b player_id=01f5k5xtr64thj7fw2 image=https://sixerswire.usatoday.com/wp-content/plugins/mm-video/images/playlist-icon.png]
[listicle id=47111]
[lawrence-related id=47142,47138,47133]