Joel Embiid has been really close to winning the NBA MVP award in the past two seasons, finishing second in the voting, right behind the winner, Nikola Jokic. The Serbian big man has impressed the league with his performances in the past two campaigns.
Embiid has also been great for the Philadelphia 76ers, but he’s always fallen short against Jokic, who is considered the best center in the league. These bad experiences prompted Embiid to claim he was done with the MVP race, although he keeps being mentioned among the best players in the league.
Now that the 2023 All-Star Game is coming and fans have already started voting for the players they want to see in the big match, Embiid’s name has been brought up, as he appears to be a lock to start in the frontcourt of his team. This could be a problem considering all the players that would be part of the game, and one NBA insider believes Embiid could be rejected by media voters.
Joel Embiid Isn’t The Favorite Player Of Many NBA Media Members
Brian Windhorst of ESPN recently touched on this, saying that media voters dislike Embiid, which is why he hasn’t been able to win the MVP trophy. During the most recent edition of The Hoop Collective, he was joined by Tim Bomptens and Tim MacMahon.
At some point, they discussed the fact that perhaps four players would have a chance to start in the frontcourt: Embiid, Jayson Tatum, Kevin Durant, and Giannis Antetokounmpo. While Bomptens and MacMahon claimed that Tatum would be the fourth player on this list, Windhorst claimed that the media voters would go with Embiid, as they don’t like the Cameroonian-born player (9:41 mark).
“Tatum is popular. The media voters like Tatum, and have been impressed with his season at this point.”
“The media voters do not like Joel Embiid. Excuse me, sir. The media voters do not like Joel Embiid.”
After his guests tried to bring the facts, Windhorst doubled down on his comments, saying that media voters want to act innocent for the fans, but they don’t like Embiid and whenever they have the chance to do so, they would ‘bury’ the Sixers superstar in voting.
This is a serious allegation, but it could also explain some things about Joel. Embiid has stated that he’s done with the MVP race and it doesn’t seem like something will change his mind, at least this campaign.
Right now, he’s sidelined, which certainly hurts his chances of competing for the trophy. Meanwhile, Jayson Tatum, Nikola Jokic, Kevin Durant, Luka Doncic and Giannis Antetokounmpo keep playing and presenting their credentials to win the longed-for award.
We sincerely appreciate and respect you as a reader of our site. It would help us a lot if you follow us on Google News because of the latest update.
Thanks for following us. We really appreciate your support.
