Process to MVP: Joel Embiid’s uncommon path and those who helped him reach stardom

BOSTON — Doc Rivers’ declaration arrived a month ago to the day, after Joel Embiid had scored 52 of the 76ers’ 103 points in a late-season victory over the Boston Celtics.

“The MVP race is over,” the Sixers coach said. “The man just scored half our points in an NBA game. And I’m biased, but the MVP race is over.”

That may have been the conclusion of Embiid’s road to the NBA’s highest individual honor, which became official when he was announced as the winner Tuesday night. That arrived after Embiid led the NBA in scoring for the second consecutive season, with a career-high 33.1 points per game, and continued to dazzle with his blend of force and skill on both ends of the floor while averaging 10.2 rebounds, 4.2 assists, and 1.7 blocks.

But when did this possibility first become apparent to those who have been instrumental in Embiid’s basketball journey? When did they believe he had vaulted himself in the stratosphere that made him capable of winning this award?

» READ MORE: Sixers’ Joel Embiid wins NBA MVP, beating out Nikola Jokić, Giannis Antetokounmpo

Told through the lens of some who have watched Embiid’s ascent unfold, here are the moments that transformed The Process into The MVP.

Masai Ujiri, the Toronto Raptors president and the director of Basketball Without Borders Africa, recently sent a photo of a young Embiid to Luc Mbah a Moute, whose reaction was, “Wow, look at this kid.”

Perhaps nobody can tell Embiid “I knew you when” more than Mbah a Moute, who discovered Embiid in their native Cameroon and began mentoring the late-blooming player. That a teenaged Embiid weighed less than 200 pounds at the 2011 BWB camp — and was not even selected as a top-20 participant — illuminates his stunning personal trajectory while providing inspiration for aspiring players in Africa.

“He’s that kid that was always pushed to the side that kept going, kept using that as motivation,” Mbah a Moute said. “To see where he’s at today, to me, that’s the beauty of his story.”

Mbah a Moute has witnessed “surreal” moment after surreal moment with Embiid, beginning when he was the third overall pick in the 2014 draft approximately five years after they first met. They were Sixers teammates in Embiid’s first season, when the young center observed and asked questions even while sitting out. That provided Mbah a Moute with further belief that Embiid could be “special.” And when Embiid finally took the floor as a pro, Mbah a Moute was struck by his already fluid movement.

From there, it became “this kid is an All-Star” to “this kid is in the conversation for MVP” to “this kid is leading the league in scoring.”

“It all surprises me, in a really good way,” Mbah a Moute said, “because I don’t want to be accustomed to it.”

Embiid has regularly returned to his home continent to work with youth players at the BWB camp and NBA Africa Academy. Chris Ebersole, the league’s associate vice president and head of elite basketball, recalls watching a group of academy players glued to the action from their courtside seats as Embiid went through an individual training session with personal trainer Drew Hanlen.

“How hard he goes just on a daily basis, it’s so valuable for young players to be able to have that really tangible role model,” Ebersole said. “He was dripping sweat and really pushing himself. I think for them to see, behind the scenes, these things don’t just come naturally to him — that there’s a ton of work behind it, that he does miss shots in practice, that he does make mistakes. That’s how he makes these improvements.”

Comparing that more recent version of Embiid to the raw, scrawny 2011 BWB camper is “like watching a totally different person,” Ebersole said. He highlighted Embiid’s “dominant” January performance against the Denver Nuggets and previous back-to-back MVP Nikola Jokić, when Embiid totaled 47 points, 18 rebounds, and five assists and hit the game-clinching three-pointer over his star counterpart.

“It’s pretty mind-boggling to see,” Ebersole said. “And those moments this year, where he’s sort of planted his flag particularly in the MVP discussion, I think have been really, really telling of how important this is to him.”

» READ MORE: ‘If we made it, they can do it’: Cameroonians Joel Embiid, Pascal Siakam, Christian Koloko make history in Sixers-Raptors game

Former Sixers player development coach Chris Babcock joined Embiid in Qatar in 2016, after foot issues had robbed him of his second consecutive season since being drafted.

To try to inject some excitement into up-and-down conditioning work, Babcock told Embiid to pretend he was the sharpshooting (and significantly smaller) Stephen Curry while coming off a pick-and-roll.

“I was almost joking,” Babcock said, “and he’s coming off, and it was very eye-opening to the skill that he had. You’re like, ‘Holy crap, he’s more than just a [traditional] big man.’ He had so much to his game.”

» READ MORE: Joel Embiid’s defense is the reason this MVP shouldn’t have been his first

Babcock watched Embiid marry that ability with competitiveness and intelligence, which he displayed in a multitude of ways. If Embiid fell behind in a video game, he would throw the remote, hit the console and conclude, “Oh, the game doesn’t count.” When he struggled with an aspect of his tennis game, he would step away for a week and, unbeknownst to past and future opponents, use YouTube clips to study up.

“All of a sudden, he comes back and his weakness no longer is [one],” said Babcock, who now works for the Cleveland Cavaliers. “Those types of people are just programmed [differently].”

After that Qatar trip, Embiid finally got to apply that foundation to NBA games. While on a tight minutes restriction, he treated his four- and five-minute bursts in each outing “like the Super Bowl.” He averaged 20.2 points and 7.8 rebounds in 25.4 minutes over 31 games in 2016-17 before another injury.

Since then, Babcock has seen how becoming a father helped Embiid mature. And on the court, he witnessed Embiid steadily clear hurdles in offseason workouts that allowed him to drive in space and distribute.

“He literally got better every single year,” Babcock said. “When you’re always in that [MVP] conversation, it’s almost even better than just winning in a year. He’s consistently just been one of, if not the, best player in the league. … It will probably be that way for a lot more [years].”

Before Embiid ever played in an NBA game, he would walk in a circle around Hanlen while Hanlen demonstrated a new move during workouts.

Can you do it again? Can you do it again? Can you do it again?

The engagement from Embiid was admirable. Yet even more impressive was his ability to shift from observing to walking through the concept to using it full-speed in his next one-on-one game. These days, Embiid can take a film session discussion, “and the next night, you see it show up in games,” Hanlen said.

“That’s just so uncommon,” said Hanlen, whose other NBA clients include fellow All-Stars Jayson Tatum and Zach LaVine. “Usually, it takes hours and weeks and months — if not years — to master certain things. Whereas, for him, he can apply these things the next night.”

That ability illustrates how Embiid has continued to elevate his play each season. He and Hanlen devour tape on various defensive coverages during intense summer sessions or their periodic in-person visits (and constant conversation) throughout the season. They drew inspiration from watching Dirk Nowitzki’s NBA Finals run and studying how to play at the elbow and nail, where it is easier to combat double- and triple-teams.

That has helped Embiid morph into a center who can score off the dribble, drive to the basket, and play with enough poise to deliver the ball to teammates when swarmed by defenders. Hanlen used Game 2 of the Sixers’ first-round series against the Nets as an example, when Embiid hit Tobias Harris for a corner three-pointer and then found Tyrese Maxey to attack a defensive closeout.

“Good scorers can beat their primary defender. Great scorers beat the other team,” Hanlen said, referencing a message from the late Kobe Bryant. “That was when it really kind of adjusted my thinking pattern of, ‘OK, Joel’s already got every scoring tool that he needs to beat one defender. But he doesn’t see one defender when it comes playoff time, so we’ve got to really start being able to manipulate defenses.’

“Ever since that moment, we really took more of a holistic approach. Instead of just being a good scorer, we’ve looked at it as, ‘How can you impact winning?’ And I think that’s what you’re seeing him do. Every year, he’s just impacted winning at a higher and higher level.”

» READ MORE: Sixers fans, teammates, and more celebrate Joel Embiid being named MVP

Hanlen believes Embiid “cemented” himself in the perennial MVP conversation in 2020-21, when the Sixers had the Eastern Conference’s best record, but he injured his knee late in the regular season and finished as the runner-up. The trainer was not shy when expressing his opinion that Embiid should have won the award last year, when he led the NBA in scoring and was a strong defender. Yet Hanlen said gunning for MVP was not a major motivator during their workouts leading into this season.

“For him to come back and be an even better version of himself,” Hanlen said, “it was all, ‘You know what? To earn respect, you’ve got to win when it matters.’”

Perhaps that’s why, even after Embiid did not play in Boston on Monday night, he and Hanlen huddled in deep conversation in the hallway just outside TD Garden’s visitors’ locker room.

“Whenever we talk, we think there’s still additional levels that he can get to,” Hanlen said. “It just shows you how special he is.”

Maxey acknowledges he did not watch a ton of Sixers games before he was drafted by the organization in 2020. And because he is a guard, Maxey also did not study big men as intensely as players closer to his makeup.

But when Maxey arrived at training camp before his rookie season, he immediately recognized how “massive” Embiid was — even while standing next to 6-foot-10 former Sixers backup center Dwight Howard.

“He’s literally towering over Dwight,” Maxey said. “He was dominating training camp and he was just so locked in going into that season. … I know he’s been even better since then. But what he was doing, the way he was dribbling, the way he was handling the ball, the way he was getting to his [hesitation] pull-up, the way he was scoring, it was just massive. You couldn’t score on him, either.

“I’d just never seen that before in my life. To be able to get a close-up look at it has been amazing.”

Maxey’s time with the Sixers has essentially coincided with Embiid’s entrance into the MVP conversation. The third-year guard is awed by how Embiid continues to discover “new moves or new nuances of the game for not just himself, but us as well” — and that he has made a concerted effort to become a more impactful team leader.

“He makes me gain confidence,” Maxey said of Embiid. “… When your best player is confident in you, it just gives you the ability to go out there and perform at the highest level.”

Hours before the Sixers gathered to watch — and celebrate — Embiid achieve the sport’s highest individual honor, Rivers echoed many of Maxey’s sentiments. The coach also laid out a five-pronged road map that took Embiid from MVP contender to winner.

1. Improve conditioning.

» READ MORE: Joel Embiid’s defense is the reason this MVP shouldn’t have been his first | David Murphy

2. Become a dominant fourth-quarter defender.

3. Figure out where to play on the floor offensively, including the ratio of jumpers and rolls for inside finishes.

4. Identify a go-to shot.

5. Improve as a passer.

“That comes because you watch film, [and] you do it,” Rivers said, “and then, you work on it hundreds and hundreds of times, by yourself.”

By completing those final steps, The Process had transformed into The MVP.