Wilt Chamberlain’s feats have never seemed real, like tall tales that only grow more incredible with time. Take his eye-popping 1961-62 campaign, when he reached basketball’s kill screen by scoring 100 points in a single game for the Philadelphia Warriors, averaging 50.4 points and 25.7 rebounds a game for an entire season. When he was later accused of being a selfish player who only cared about scoring, the 7ft 1in strongman became the only center before or since to lead the NBA in assists. Incredibly, he never fouled out of a game. As the durability of sporting records and achievements go, the Wilt conversation drifts past Michael Jordan territory into the realm of Don Bradman and Leonidas of Rhodes. For a larger-than-life figure beyond the court whose claims included manhandling a mountain lion in self-defense, coming this close to fighting Muhammad Ali at the Astrodome and racking up Genghis Khan numbers in the bedroom, it’s fitting that his nickname, the Big Dipper, borrowed not from a star but an entire constellation.
All of this provides an instructive framing for the rarefied air Joel Embiid has inhabited over the past few months. Last season the Philadelphia 76ers’ star center was an uncontroversial winner of the NBA’s Most Valuable Player award, even if Nikola Jokić’s sensational postseason wrought a sense of buyer’s remorse. This year, Embiid has been even better. Owing largely to an improved mid-range jump shot, he is averaging 36.1 points in 34.2 minutes per game, which is more points per minute than Wilt during his 50-point-per-game season. If he keeps it up, Embiid will become only the second player in NBA history to average more points than minutes played throughout a full season after Wilt in ‘61-62.
It’s a truly historic tear that’s been picking up steam as the season progresses. Over his past 16 games, Embiid has been putting up PlayStation numbers on a nightly basis: averaging a preposterous 40.3 points while shooting 57.4% from the field, 41.7% from three-point range and 89.7% from the free-throw line. The high point of that stretch appeared to come last week, when he took this year’s MVP race by the scruff of the neck by getting the better of Jokić in their first head-to-head meeting of the season, finishing with 41 points, seven rebounds and 10 assists in a Philadelphia win.
But that was simply an appetizer for Monday night, when Embiid erupted for 70 points against the San Antonio Spurs to topple Wilt’s 57-year-old franchise scoring record. In an eagerly awaited showdown with No 1 overall draft pick and superstar-in-waiting Victor Wembanyama, who is 7ft 4in but a reed-thing 209lbs, Embiid made a mockery of every different combination of defenders and schemes that San Antonio threw his way. He’d scored 24 by the end of the first quarter, 34 by half-time and tied his career high with 59 with an absurd three at the buzzer to end the third. Mase said he did everything to Wemby but give him a wedgie on the court.
The cocktail of power, precision and grace in a 7ft, 285lb package is unlike anything we’ve quite seen. Embiid has been able to bully his way to the basket whenever he wants for years now, but complementing that physicality with a deadeye pull-up jumper, when it’s clicking, makes him unguardable. Nights like Monday make it seem almost unfair. Operating with a mechanical efficiency and indefatigable motor, he took 41 shots and made 24 of them, connecting on 21 of his 23 attempts from the stripe. He grabbed 18 rebounds, dished out five assists and committed just a single turnover. It would not be hyperbolic to call it one of the best games ever played.
Anybody who called for Embiid to be traded after last season’s disastrous playoff loss to the Celtics is probably feeling silly right about now. And while it true that Embiid’s multiple playoff no-shows are credible dings on his permanent record – that getting Philadelphia over the hump into the Eastern Conference finals for only the second time in four decades is all that matters – only a true killjoy could think of that now.
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Yes, the Sixers have earned a reputation as flat-track bullies with Embiid as their ringleader, piling up gaudy win totals in the regular season only to struggle in the playoffs when the game slows down and every possession counts. But there’s reason to believe the Sixers could finally break their second-round hoodoo this year and avoid another misty-eyed exit. Tyrese Maxey, their 23-year-old combo guard, has become a bona fide star in his fourth NBA season. The whole group has thrived under first-year head coach Nick Nurse, who represents a major upgrade from postseason millstone Doc Rivers. They’ve won 26 of 32 games when Embiid plays, a better win-loss percentage than any team in the standings today. But even if they don’t thrive in the postseason in a few months, Embiid has already written his name into history.
Nowhere is Wilt’s mystique more deeply lionized than in Philadelphia, where he was born and first shot to national fame as a multi-sport phenom at Overbrook High School and where basketball is embedded in the cultural DNA. You could see it in the faces of the thousands of fans who lingered in the Wells Fargo Center long after Monday’s final buzzer; they knew they’d borne witness to a greatness that doesn’t come around often. And the best may be yet to come.
