January 03, 2017
To the surprise of quite literally nobody, Joel Embiid was named NBA Eastern Conference Rookie of the Month for December on Tuesday. It was the second consecutive time that “The Process” won the award, after capturing it for the months of October/November. New Orleans’ Buddy Hield won the award in the Western Conference.
In 10 games played for the month, Embiid averaged 19.8 points, 6.8 rebounds, 2.3 assists, 2.4 blocks, and 1.1 steals in 27.3 minutes per game. As long as the 22-year-old big man stays healthy, it wouldn’t be all that surprising if he ended up sweeping these awards en route to the rookie of the year.
“He just does things increasingly that really surprise you,” Brett Brown said before Tuesday night’s game against the Minnesota Timberwolves. “It’s on offense, it’s on defense, it’s on leadership, it’s on the toughness, competitive side which sort of equals a package.
“To learn that he has been named rookie of the month, I think is the right decision. And I think we should all be excited that he’s ours.”
The Sixers put together a pretty solid video recapping Embiid’s performance in December:
The next question is if Embiid will be an all-star in New Orleans this February. The Sixers have pushed the fan voting aspect of the process (pun intended) pretty hard, and Embiid is likely doing very well in that regard.
Before the game against Minnesota, Brown was asked if he wanted Embiid to go to N’awlins considering it would add to his workload and cut into a potential rest period. After all, Embiid is still on a 28-minute restriction and still isn’t playing back-to-backs.
"And you watch the interaction and the camaraderie and the pride and the talent in that room, that is an experience you don’t forget.”
“Because I think he deserves it,” Brown said. “I think that the health risk is becoming increasingly less as I’m advised. Hence the ‘you can play,’ ‘you can play,’ ‘you can play’ on a repetitive basis.”
“When they [medical staff] say, if they say this is fine and we don’t believe there’s any health risk, then I completely support it. I’ve been to two of them and you go into the locker room and you’ll see 24 NBA all-stars. And you watch the interaction and the camaraderie and the pride and the talent in that room, that is an experience you don’t forget.”
Follow Rich on Twitter: @rich_hofmann
