Embiid is excelling at the nail and elbow and takes issue with Olajuwon’s criticism

PORTLAND, Ore. — The topic of one of the first conversations between Doc Rivers and Joel Embiid was to identify the most effective spots on the court for the All-NBA center to receive the ball.

The 76ers coach further sharpened that request heading into last offseason. Rivers wanted Embiid to focus on operating from the elbow (where the horizontal free-throw line meets the vertical lane line) and the nail (placed at the center of the free-throw line) — especially to close out games.

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Embiid’s development at those spots has helped the 7-footer further blossom into a player who is wildly skilled for his size. The numbers illustrate his rare combination of dominance and versatility, as he entered Thursday averaging career-highs in scoring (33.6 points per game), field-goal percentage (.536) and assists (4.2 per game, matching last season) in 33 games for a Sixers team that is 29-16 and tied for second place in the Eastern Conference following Tuesday’s 105-95 victory over the Trail Blazers.

So Embiid took issue with recent comments by Hall of Fame cengter Hakeem Olajuwon, who criticized Embiid’s style in a Sports Illustrated story published earlier this week about the death of traditional, methodical and lumbering post-up play.

“It’s funny when we’ve got these old guys always talking about posting up, need to spend time in the paint and all that stuff,” Embiid said, not specifically mentioning Olajuwon or the story but making his implication clear. “You can’t win this way anymore. It’s not the frickin’ ‘90s or ‘80s. … They must not have any basketball IQ.”

In a deeply reported piece by Chris Ballard that included a visit to Olajuwon’s ranch and gym, Olajuwon said Embiid has “got all the moves, but leveraging the moves is different, Why would he be shooting threes? He has the advantage every night, and if I have the advantage, I’m going to wear you out.” Olajuwon also called Embiid’s three-pointers “settling! When I’m tired, I settle. You don’t settle when you’re trying to win. You don’t start the game settling!” And that is far from the first time a player from an earlier generation has knocked the more free-flowing (and higher-scoring) modern game.

Yet when Embiid and private trainer Drew Hanlen reviewed the film of last season’s Sixers playoff games, they noticed how much he struggled to receive passes in the post — either because a teammate could not properly feed him the ball or because multiple defenders were already waiting or immediately swarmed him upon receiving it. So they shifted their studies to “masters” of the middle of the court such as Kobe Bryant, Michael Jordan, Dirk Nowitzki, and Kevin Durant, and then “started all of our work, basically, in the area,” Embiid said.

Embiid believes his court vision is much better while facing the basket from the nail or elbow, where he can recognize where a help defender is coming from and then distribute to the appropriate teammate for an open shot. If that trap attempt never arrives, Embiid then has the space to take his defender off the dribble. That’s when he puts elements of his three-pronged, on-court summer plan — improving his perimeter attacks, using touch on finishes at the rim and sharpening his dribble pick-up before firing the shot — into motion.

“You can take the ball away from the guy on the blocks now,” Rivers said. " … But from the nail, I’m looking right at everybody and you’re almost like, ‘Come to me. I’ll see you come.’ So [you can make] quicker decisions.”

Added Embiid: “It’s changed everything.”

So has teaming up with a playmaker like James Harden, who entered Thursday leading the NBA with 11.2 assists per game and has become a lethal partner for Embiid in the two-man game. These days, they also use the pick-and-roll to get Embiid to the elbow, where he regularly elevates for soft jumpers. And when Embiid opts to roll all the way to the basket instead, it often catches defenders off-guard. Down the stretch of Thursday’s win in Portland, for instance, an aggressive one-handed dunk — with a bit of a spin on the way down — put the Sixers up 92-80 to help squash a Blazers rally.

The Sixers still occasionally pass to Embiid in the post to purposefully force a trap, which prompts the ball movement that they define as an element of their pace. Rivers also continues to preach proper floor-spacing — typically three teammates on one side of the court and one in the opposite corner — to create a lane to the basket for Embiid. Rivers said he enjoys the way a more-comfortable Embiid now baits defenders into doubling him to generate an open shot for somebody else.

That is all the result of direct conversations between player and coach, then of Embiid’s summer work to sharpen the skills that have made him a potent and efficient scorer and playmaker from the elbow and nail.

Even if Olajuwon does not approve.

“Everyone has their place. Everyone has their area,” Rivers said. " … They also have their move, they have their shot and they have the secondary move — the great ones do. We felt like that was Jo’s step to take, and he’s done that.

“He’s making [shots and plays from those spots] game after game, and he does it in different ways now.”

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