Joel Embiid Would Rather Retire Than Go To Indiana, And He's Still Correct Despite The Pacers Going To The NBA Finals
The Indiana Pacers are heading back to the NBA Finals for the first time since 2000. This comes off the heels of making it to the Eastern Conference Finals last season, where they lost to the Celtics. Meanwhile, the Philadelphia 76ers still haven't managed to get out of the 2nd round of the playoffs during Joel Embiid's career. The Sixers haven't played for an NBA title since 2001.
So clearly the Indiana Pacers are more successful than the Sixers. No doy. The Raptors, the Bucks, the Celtics, the Heat, the Pacers, the goddamn Knicks. All of these teams have been more successful than any single Joel Embiid led Philadelphia 76ers team. It's really not all that hard to do to be more successful than the Sixers because they just find ways to implode every year on their own.
But at this point, Joel Embiid can't go anywhere else. At least not if he's trying to change his legacy. If he wants to win a title just for the heck of it, then sure. But if he's trying to change the way people remember him--which is as one of the most talented losers to ever play the game? Then he needs to stick it out in Philly.
Embiid already did the "ring chasing" thing when he decided to ditch his home country of Cameroon to play for Team USA at the Olympics last summer. He linked up with the super team to win an Olympic gold medal. At the end of the day? Pretty sweet move by Embiid. Being able to say you're an Olympic gold medalist for the rest of your life is absolutely worth a few idiots on the internet questioning his integrity. Everybody gets a one time pass to ring chase, and Embiid used his up for the Olympics.
If he goes anywhere else to win an NBA Championship at this point in his career, nobody will give him credit for that championship. It'll always be that he had to leave and join a super team just to win, and that his teammates carried him. Even if he won Finals MVP, the narrative would be that he couldn't get it done in Philly. So the only way Embiid erases a decade-long history of embarrassing exits in the playoffs is if he somehow manages to find a way to pull it off with the Sixers. Which seems largely impossible at the moment. But it's his only option.
P.S. -- That video is one of the reasons why Tyrese Haliburton has the Pacers in the NBA Finals right now. Everybody knows that as far as destinations go, Indianapolis is as far down as it gets in the NBA. But the man clearly loves his city, and he'll do whatever it takes for them.