Philadelphia 76ers center Joel Embiid was named to the All NBA second team on Thursday, for the second straight season. Nikola Jokić controversially beat out Embiid for the All NBA first team center spot.
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Here are the 2018-19 All NBA teams:
First team: Stephen Curry, James Harden, Giannis Antetokounmpo, Nikola Jokic, Paul George
Second team: Damian Lillard, Kevin Durant, Joel Embiid, Kawhi Leonard, Kyrie Irving
Third team: Russell Westbrook, Blake Griffin, LeBron James, Rudy Gobert, Kemba Walker
Embiid averaged 27.5 points, 13.6 rebounds, 3.7 assists, and 1.9 blocks per game in 64 games, playing a career-high 33.7 minutes per game this season.
Jokic, in his fourth NBA season, averaged 20.1 points, 10.8 rebounds, 7.3 assists, 1.4 steals, 0.7 blocks in 80 games while shooting 51.1 FG% / 30.7 3PT% / 82.1 FT%.
Both Jokic and Embiid could not get their teams into their respective conference finals' series.
Some NBA advanced stats say Jokic has had a better season than Embiid. Jokic was among NBA top-five leaders in win shares per 48 minutes (an estimate of number of wins contributed per 48 minutes), box plus-minus (a box score estimate of points per 100 possessions a player contributes over league-average value), and VORP (value over replacement player). In contrast, Embiid was well outside the top 10 in those three important advanced categories.
Also noteworthy is Sixers' Ben Simmons received seven third team votes.
Either way, Embiid, 25, is starting to rack up the NBA accolades. Drafted as the Sixers' No. 3 overall pick in 2014, Embiid did not make his NBA debut until 2016 due to injuries. Embiid has played 63 and 64 games, respectively, over the last two seasons, and he was an all-star in both of them. This year, Embiid was a starter in the all-star game for the first time. The next step for Embiid is to work on his conditioning and dominate in the playoffs. In 19 career playoff games, Embiid is averaging just 20.7 points on just 43.1 FG%, compared to his regular season average of 48.1 FG%.
Contractually, Embiid is all set for now. He signed a five-year, $148 million rookie scale maximum contract extension with the Sixers in October of 2017.
Embiid took this year's semifinals Game 7 eliminating loss to the Toronto Raptors extremely difficult, as he burst into tears immediately after Kawhi Leonard's ridiculous shot went in.
A post shared by 94WIP (@sportsradio94wip) on May 13, 2019 at 5:51am PDT
Hopefully Embiid can use that moment (and this one) to motivate him this summer, and going forward in his young career.
