Joel Embiid Is The NBA’s Conor McGregor

Joel Embiid has truly arrived, and already he has no comparison. At least, not in the NBA.

I’m fascinated by Joel Embiid.

Or perhaps, to be more specific, I’m intrigued by the idea of the Philadelphia 76ers‘ big man. I’m still not quite sure why this is, but now that he’s actually playing basketball, I think I know.

You see, he’s more than just a player. Already he seems like an institution in the NBA. The kind of individual you have to keep a close eye on, because you don’t know what’s going to happen.

You know what the crazy part about that is? He’s only played four professional basketball games in his life. But whether it’s making three point shots or trying to holler at Kim Kardashian, the guy is just box office entertainment.

He’s incomparable in a league where everybody is friendly with one another (bar the ever intensifying Warriors and Cavaliers rivalry) and all players strive to say the right thing.

So, despite his thin body of work to date, the most obvious comparison I can find with Embiid is MMA superstar Conor McGregor.

If he can grow to have even half the importance to the NBA that McGregor now commands in the UFC, Embiid’s career is going to go to strange and wonderful places.

You see, love him or hate him, everybody knows who McGregor is these days. Even here in Ireland, the people who are behind him and the ones who want to see him get knocked out are split more evenly than you’d think.

Embiid is not yet that divisive, but he’s sure doing his best to get to that point as quickly as possible. Even on the court, there are those who almost want or expect to see him fail.

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I’m kind of ashamed to say I fall into that category. A guy who misses two straight years through injury, that’s got to be a recipe for disaster, right?

It’s like teams look at past injury plagued big men like Greg Oden, Yao Ming, and the OG of them all, Sam Bowie, and think their guy will be different.

We live in a league now where three-point shooting, position-less play and small ball lineups are what teams want to build around.

It’s taken a mighty long time, but already Embiid does seem different, and the 76ers are playing it smart by resting him during back-to-backs. After only playing four games of basketball.

Still though, this ability to seemingly bounce back from a serious injury is another trait he may share with McGregor.

In only his second professional fight, he tore his ACL (Anterior Cruciate Ligament) in a win over Max Holloway.

The momentum he had accumulated up to that point (McGregor was on an 11-fight win streak at the time) could have stopped there. But he kept himself relevant by appearing on many media outlets. Embiid also did this while injured, but like Mcgregor, he has kept up this part of his character since returning.

Only recently, in an interview with Sports Illustrated’s Lee Jenkins, Embiid said that he learned to shoot by watching white people do it.

I mean, come on. Not only is this hilarious and plays brilliantly on the stereotypes that most have of white basketball players, it’s a golden soundbite.

"“You know how I learnt to shoot? I watched white people. Just regular white people. They really put their elbow in and finish up top. You can find videos of them online.”"

It’s not quite on the antagonistic level of McGregor claiming he’d ride into a Brazilian favela on horseback and conquer it, but it’s equally as memorable.

When Embiid isn’t poking fun at whole ethnic groups however, he’s going right after his opponents. Sound familiar to the antics of McGregor?

He took to the Instagram account of Chandler Parsons during preseason and left him a blunt message under a picture Parsons had posted.

The fact the 76ers lost that meaningless game isn’t even important, it’s the blatant outrageousness of his actions here that are so entertaining.

He’s also blunt in his love for Shirley Temples. While that may one day be detrimental to his game, it seems it’s something he enjoys and is a small perk of being a professional basketball player.

Never mind that he could actually be joking as well. McGregor’s lavish lifestyle is on another level, but there’s no doubt he’s fond of the good things in life when he’s not preparing for a fight.

Talented individuals who are engaging personalities and enjoy unwinding after a long day’s work, just like the rest of us? Give us more please!

Do you know what really links the two however? The potential of what they could one day be, and what they already represent.

McGregor is further along in this respect, he’s an established superstar who blazed a trail to the top in his own, unique way. He’s fought adversity, and honestly he’ll always have the lingering doubt of another knee injury hanging over him no matter how long he continues to fight.

Embiid is the same; those foot issues he’s had (two surgeries already) are likely to sit above his head like a storm cloud.

But I remember before McGregor’s fight with Dustin Poirier, his fourth in the UFC, that commentator Mike Goldberg claimed that some athletes just had the “it” factor.

Goldberg then went on to compare McGregor to some other athletes who had that special something in their respective sports, and he brought up Michael Jordan.

To hear McGregor compared to Jordan at that point was ridiculous. Even comparing the two today seems a stretch as well. But people bought into him big time.

Embiid is only starting out, but four games into his career (a much shorter span than four fights in the UFC, admittedly), others are already expecting big things from the center.

In fact, none other than former New York Knicks (and capable three-point shooter) center Patrick Ewing thinks Embiid is already the best center in the league.

High praise from a true great at that position. Make no mistake, Embiid has done little to deserve a compliment like that at this stage.

What he is doing, however, is averaging 40 percent shooting from three-point range on 1.7 attempts per game so far. A small sample size, sure, but still a crazy good number.

He needs to prove he can stay healthy as well though, and if so then the sky truly is the limit for this guy, both on and off the court. As we move into the next age of NBA basketball, we need new and diverse stars to prop the league up.

We already have the good guy family man (Stephen Curry), the guy you love to hate (Dwight Howard), the lone wolf (Russell Westbrook) and the aging king (LeBron James), to name a few.

But we’ve seen how a unique social media presence, a steely confidence and the ability to back up what you say were able to give Conor McGregor the keys to the UFC kingdom.

Joel Embiid is the one guy who could be that person in the NBA, sooner rather than later.

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We’ve never seen anything like this before, and I have no idea how it is going to play out. Whether it ends spectacularly or in tears, I’ll be watching every step of the way.