Joel Embiid got better with Team USA at the Olympics. Will he be better with the Sixers, too?

I was opposed to Joel Embiid playing in the Olympics. I believed the injury risk for a 30-year-old who had undergone seven surgeries, had broken both eye sockets, and had never been healthy for a full season and playoff run was too great for any possible benefit.

I believed the Sixers agreed with me, though they couldn’t say it. After all, they couldn’t forbid Embiid from playing. Further, they didn’t want to risk antagonizing the second-most talented player in franchise history, considering the most talented one, fellow Kansas big man Wilt Chamberlain, forced a trade almost 60 years ago.

Well, Embiid didn’t get hurt; not badly, anyway. He slightly sprained an ankle. Meanwhile, every possible benefit of Embiid playing in the Olympics manifested itself.

Embiid is a far better player today than he was in June. This might startle some observers, since most of the Embiid-related coverage at the Olympics focused either on his feud with French fans whom he betrayed by playing for Team USA or his struggles during the exhibition games and early in the group stage, but the reality is this:

Embiid’s game evolved more in the past three weeks than it did in the past three years.

Paul George will be his teammate in Philadelphia for the next four years. So will Tyrese Maxey. If Embiid’s development is permanent — if he continues to play in this unselfish, enlightened, well-conditioned manner — the potential for the franchise is unlimited.

He’s fitter than he’s ever been, especially in any given August. He’s lighter on his feet. He better understands defensive spacing. He’s quicker to the ball on defense; he closed out on three-pointers instead of laying back in the lane, as he did in the Sixers’ opening-round playoff loss to the Knicks this year.

More than anything else, Embiid in France made much quicker decisions with the ball. For the last few seasons he has averaged about 2.6 seconds per touch, which is suboptimal in today’s game for a player who plays mostly on the perimeter, unless that player is Nikola Jokić, the best big-man passer in generations.

In Paris, Embiid’s shots came quickly. When he handled the ball, he either made a move or gave it up. Maybe he set a pick, and rolled hard to the basket, or tried this, his signature play of the tournament: In the second half of the semis, Embiid brought the ball up, executed a give-and-go with Jrue Holiday, and charged past Jokić for a thunderous dunk straight down the lane.

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When he received the ball in the course of an ordinary offensive possession, if he didn’t shoot then he made a simple, crisp pass. This minimized the turnovers that have plagued Embiid in big games since the Sixers lost to the Hawks in the second round of the 2021 playoffs, when he committed 25 turnovers in Games 4-7, of which the Sixers lost three. Embiid committed just nine turnovers in six Olympic games, or 1.5 per game, 2.2 fewer turnovers than his career playoff average. Yes, he averaged far fewer minutes, but he also played much smarter basketball.

Why?

Maybe because, after a run of spotty and selfish play, Steve Kerr benched him for the second game of Olympic pool play because, Kerr said, Team USA needed to play faster against ... South Sudan.

South Sudan.

Maybe because, after a sloppy start, he got sick of his superstar teammates giving him cold shoulders.

In the NBA, with teammates like Tobias Harris and Furkan Korkmaz, you can wear funny glasses and call yourself “The Process” and gain notoriety with Twitter beefs and Instagram stories and get away with it. But when it’s LeBron James and Steph Curry in your locker room and on the team bus and on your hip on the court, basketball becomes business right quick. For the first time in his life, for Embiid, basketball was business.

Beyond the on-court improvements, consider the intangible benefits of a gold-medal run.

He experienced winning a championship in anything for the first time. He witnessed the selflessness required to win championships. He witnessed the NBA’s most gifted young player, Anthony Edwards, and its most skilled big man, Anthony Davis, embrace supporting roles, all for the greater good.

Embiid averaged 11.2 points and 3.8 rebounds in 16.8 minutes. He scored 19 points against Serbia and Jokić, his archnemesis, in the semifinals, seven of those points down the stretch of a close game. But Embiid’s outstanding play went far beyond his 8-for-11 shooting. He was nearly as relevant in a four-point performance in the gold-medal win over France.

The brilliance lay in the details. For instance:

Embiid nearly forced a turnover on Serbia’s first possession, looking light and balanced on his feet. He fired a quick catch-and-shoot on USA’s second possession (he missed). He tapped a long offensive rebound to Curry on the third, and Curry hit a three. Embiid stole a pass in transition on the sideline midway through the first quarter, the most athletic open-court play he’s made in three years. He made a catch-and-shoot corner three in the second quarter; the next time he had the chance, he threw a pump fake at Jokić, drove baseline, and threw down a monster dunk.

He wasn’t perfect. The one time Embiid caught the ball and held it against Serbia, he nearly turned it over. He still struggles to defend on the perimeter, which made Davis and Bam Adebayo better defensive choices when opponents were likely to stay outside. However, when he was younger, fitter, and had experienced fewer injuries, Embiid was able to guard any player anywhere on the court. Perhaps he can regain that degree of agility.

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There was a hope by the Sixers that, being immersed in a culture of excellence, Embiid would embrace the habits of champions like maniacal workers Steph and ‘Bron. This ignores the fact that Embiid was teammates with Jimmy Butler and JJ Redick, the NBA’s two biggest overachievers of the era. He’s seen the fruits of hard work.

It should be noted that, in Embiid’s defense, we often ignore that he came to basketball at the age of 15. Most elite players form instincts and habits long before they are 15, habits that are second nature by the time they reach the NBA. Embiid was in his third NBA season before he could get from one side of the basket to the other without traveling.

Should he have been a better player than he was through his just-completed 10th season? Yes.

But, at any rate, Embiid is better this month than he was last month. Sure, might have reinjured his knees at the Olympics, and it looked like a hard foul in the gold-medal game injured his right hand, but he escaped without damage.

If these changes are permanent, then every second of risk was worth the reward.