NBA MVP Race: Embiid, Nash, Rose & More - Championship History

The NBA began awarding a Most Valuable Player Award in 1956, meaning that we have had 68

different seasons with an MVP chosen. Out of those 68 seasons, just 35 players have won the award

with just 8 of them never winning an NBA championship, and 3 of them never making an

NBA finals. First, it was Steve Nash who won back-to-back MVPs in 2005 and 2006 with the Phoenix

Suns, the furthest he would make it is a conference finals in his career, which he did four times

The second being Derrick Rose, who was the youngest MVP ever. And if it weren't for an

injury derailing his career at a young age, maybe things would have been different. And lastly

none other than current NBA superstar, Joel Embiid of the Philadelphia 76ers. But to make things

even worse. Joel Embiid has not just never won a championship ring, he has never made an NBA finals

Matter of fact, he has never made a conference finals. There's only one other MVP in league

history that comes close to this, and that was Bob McAdoo in 1975. He would win an MVP award for

the infamous Buffalo Braves, aka the modern day Los Angeles Clippers at just 23 years old

and it would take him until he was 30 years old on his six different NBA team to finally make a

conference finals. That team just so happened to be the 1981 Lakers who would win it all that year

leaving Joel Embiid in lone company as the only player to ever do this. And that's not to say

that players that won an MVP in a certain season didn't have a disappointing postseason that year

For example, Dirk Nowitzki won MVP in 2007, but was upset in the first round by the Golden State Warriors

However, Dirk had already made a conference final in 2003 and in 2006, advancing to the NBA Finals in 2006 before winning a championship in 2011

Yet here we are in 2024 with Joel Embiid, winner of the 2023 MVP award at 30 years old

having never made an Eastern Conference Final in seven consecutive playoff appearances

Is it Joel's fault? What factors have been at play over these past seven years

And does Joel have any hope of breaking the streak and redeeming his legacy in the latter

part of his career? Today in this video, we take a deep dive into it all

This is the curse of Joel Embiid. We'll talk about each one of the seven straight playoff exits before reaching the conference finals

However, let's first talk about this season's playoff exit. The 76ers would lose to the New York Knicks in six games of the first round

I'm not sure how to feel for the 76ers and Embiid when it comes to this season

On one hand, Joel Embiid got hurt in January, tearing his meniscus, keeping him out of 28 straight games between February and March

And leading up to that injury, the Sixers were in the third seed in the Eastern Conference for a majority of the season

but would eventually finish as the seventh, giving them a much tougher road in the playoffs and having to win a play-in game first

And although Embiid would come back for the playoffs, you could just tell not only was his knee bothering him, he had a case of Bell Palsy in one side of his face

And then if you even just take a look at his numbers in the playoffs, he had a plus 58 on off plus minus, which is almost double the number two player in the entire NBA postseason

The Sixers quite literally got killed with Joel Embiid off the floor

So how could we blame him for this season? Well, here's what I would say to that

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for sponsoring this video. Let's get back into it. Number one, he had a couple fourth quarters

where he was god-awful in losses. In game one, a game they lost by seven, Joel Embiid went 0-5

five from the floor in the fourth quarter with just six points in game two another loss he would

go just two for six from the field in game four a 97 to 92 loss he would score just one point going

0 for 5 from the field again in game five a game they won in overtime thanks to 17 fourth quarter

points from Tyrese Maxey Joel Embiid would go one for four from the field again four turnovers and

just two points. And in game six, he would have just six points, two for four from the field

So although he had an incredible on-off and he, for a large part, was the reason the Sixers even

had a chance in this series, he also completely ran out of gas in the fourth quarter and had

quite a few awful ones. But I think it really is bigger than that for Joel Embiid. Like we

stated earlier, he's not only the only MVP to never win a ring, he hasn't even made a conference

finals, much less in NBA finals, and he is turning 30 this offseason. I'm not saying that he doesn't

have a chance to redeem his legacy, make a conference final, heck, maybe even win a title

but that window is shortly closing and I would venture to say probably only has four to five

years max left on it, meaning that every single year and postseason counts, but yet it seems like

time and time again something drastic happens in the postseason for Joel Embiid and his team

Starting back in 2018, his first postseason of his career, Embiid would suffer an orbital fracture close to the end of the regular season, miss the final eight games and the first two games of the opening round

He would fight back, though, and play the remaining three games of that Miami Heat series, defeating the Heat in five games

And although they would lose to the Celtics in five games in the Eastern Conference semis

Embiid was still young. He was 23 years old. Plus, he had rookie 21-year-old Ben Simmons as his Robin

And they actually played the Celtics very tough, even though it was a gentleman's sweep

Three of those losses were by five points or less. And that Celtics team took the LeBron James Cavs to seven games in the Eastern Conference Finals

Joel Embiid and the Sixers would be fine for years to come. This was just the beginning

And then in the 2019 playoffs, Philadelphia would go all in trading for Tobias Harris and Jimmy Butler during the season

They would take care of the Brooklyn Nets in five games in the first round, matching up with the Kawhi Leonard-led mercenary season Toronto Raptors

Philadelphia would go up 2-1 in this series, blowing out the Raptors at home in Game 3

The Raptors would then win games four and five before Philadelphia winning game six

setting us up for a game seven that came down to this infamous buzzer beater

This has nothing to do with the video, but I completely forgot Kawhi scored 41 of his team's

92 points in this game. Albeit he took 39 shots. However, Embiid and Jimmy Butler both let their teams down in this one

Just did not shoot the ball well at all. Embiid went 6-for-18 from the field, and Jimmy went 5-for-14

But either way, as a Sixers fan, what you chalked this up to after watching Kawhi go and win a championship

was that this was just a legacy Kawhi Leonard run. You played the Raptors harder than anybody did

and it took a game winner from the best player in the NBA to beat you in Game 7

You'll be back and have your chance in the following seasons. That offseason, Jimmy Butler forces his way out

which sucks as a Sixers fan, but you're feeling all right. Ben Simmons is a budding superstar

and Tobias Harris is a fantastic third option. This was the bubble season in the 2020 playoffs

and the Sixers get swept by the Boston Celtics. But again, if you're a Sixer fan, you chalk it up

to a weird season. Ben Simmons was injured and did not play. Joel Embiid is just 25 years old

Ben Simmons just 23. These next couple seasons are going to be your year. The 2021 NBA season

is the season that Joel Embiid really started to break out. He would finish second in MVP voting

have 28.5 points per game on the best shooting of his career up until that point

with an effective field goal percentage of 54 But even better than that the Sixers were clicking on all levels They finished as the one seed and finally would have home court in the conference semifinals where they would face the Atlanta Hawks

In that first round series, Joel would suffer from a small meniscus tear

but he would play all games in this series versus a 22-year-old Trey Young

The Hawks would win game 5, 109-106, putting them up 3-2 in this series

before the Sixers would win game six, forcing another game seven showdown just two years removed

from the Kawhi Leonard buzzer beater. And yup, you guessed it. This is the game that broke Ben

Simmons. Hawks would win 103 to 96 and in my opinion, completely ruined Joel Embiid's best

chance at making an NBA finals. But again, if you're a Sixers fan, you can make every single

excuse that you want to. Joel Embiid was just 26 years old. Game sevens are weird. He averaged 30

points and 13 boards per game on pretty efficient scoring. You still have a good four to five year

window, which brings us to the 2022 postseason. Ben Simmons is long gone. He got traded in February

to the Nets. James Harden is the new point guard for this team. Second year player Tyrese Maxey

is budding as a third option. The Sixers would take care of the Raptors in six games, but they

did not come out of that series unscathed. Joel Embiid would take a blow to the face by Pascal

Siakam's elbow, which again fractured that same orbital bone in 2018. And later it was revealed

he was playing with a torn ligament in his thumb again. In the conference semis, once again, they

would take on former teammate Jimmy Butler and the number one seed Miami Heat. Joel Embiid would not

play in the first two games due to the injuries he suffered in that Raptors series. And because of

that, the Sixers found themselves down in an 0-2 hole. With Joel's return, they would win games 3

and 4 before losing game 5 and game 6. Another disappointing year for Joel Embiid and the

Philadelphia 76ers. But I guess if you're a Philly fan, you can convince yourself once again that

Joel Embiid was only getting better every year. He averaged a career high this year, 30.6 points per game

finished second in MVP voting. Plus Tyrese Maxey looked really good at just 21 years old

And Joel was only 27. It's not like he's 34. Which has us fast forwarding to last year's playoffs

Embiid somehow takes another step forward, averaging 33.6 points per game, finally wins his coveted MVP

and does so on incredible efficiency. He had an effective field goal percentage of 57.3

which was 3% higher than any other year in his career. Joel had wanted that MVP

He had been searching for it, and he finally now had gotten it

This was the Sixers year. They would sweep the Brooklyn Nets in the first round

However, again, the injury bug came after Joel Embiid in the postseason

He would sprain his knee. In game three, he would miss the first game of the conference semifinals versus the Boston Celtics

but his teammates picked him up. They would steal game one in Boston. He would return for game two

and play the rest of this series. After a one-point win in game four and a 12-point win in game five

Philadelphia was up three to two on the Celtics. They were just one game away from Joel Embiid

finally making the conference finals and they were going to be able to clinch it on their home

court in game six they were up 83 to 81 with about four minutes to go when joel and bead wouldn't

touch the ball the rest of the game and they would lose by nine which at that point everyone kind of

was the end they'd lose in game seven in a blowout 112 to 88 and this was about the time last year

when I made my first Joel Embiid video. Just last season, after this loss

especially with his performance in that game seven, he shot five for 18 from the field

It kind of solidified the national narrative that Joel Embiid cannot win in the playoffs

And it only made things worse that he won the MVP last year

because now it was something everybody was holding over his head. And obviously we already covered what happened this year

As I went through all seven of his postseason runs over the past seven years, it's easy to make excuses

It easy to talk about the injuries the unforeseen events the oddness of players like Ben Simmons just deciding to not be able to play basketball anymore But however however at some point it becomes not a trend but the norm And I think

after seven seasons, we have to genuinely sit down and look and start questioning

is Joel Embiid's body able to hold up over the course of an NBA season and an NBA postseason

And at the end of the day, we said this with Jamal Murray this postseason. If you're out there

on the court and you're good enough to play, how many times can we make excuses for nagging injuries

Everybody's playing through something, and while that's not apples to apples, some are playing

through much more than others. We have to judge what happens on the court, and that's why more than

anything, this postseason, I would say, was by far the best of his entire career. Not only was his

efficiency higher than most seasons, he finally averaged 33 points per game, which was what he

averaged in the regular season and a career high. So despite those fourth quarters being really bad

which they are, the fact that he leads the playoffs in on off by as much as he does just

goes to show you how valuable he was to the Sixers in this series. And it's why the Sixers have a very

important offseason ahead of them. When they traded James Harden at the beginning of the year

and got draft capital back instead of win now pieces, they were basically deciding that this

season was going to be what it was they weren't necessarily going all in and while I understand

why Daryl Morey did that I do think that this next offseason has to be all about going all in

Tyrese Maxey has officially taken the leap he wins most improved player of the year which means Joel

Embiid has a Robin again Joel will also be 30 years old next year which means he doesn't have

that many years left of his prime, especially given his injury history. But I think the most

exciting thing about the Sixers is how much salary cap room they have going into this offseason

and it's why players like Paul George have been linked to them in free agency. They also have the

16th overall pick. Daryl Morey said in his exit interview that he is happy taking a player there

he's happy trading back, but he said he isn't necessarily going to get rid of their entire

future to win now so we'll see what happens some of that is just gm speak either way i think joel

and bead only has a couple more opportunities to save his legacy it's not going to count if he's

37 years old like al horford and wins a title on a team like that even though no disrespect to al

horford i love what he's doing with the boston celtics we know from a national media perspective

joel and bead needs to get to a conference finals and potentially an nba finals while being the best

player on his own team. I think it is a little comical that guys for the Timberwolves like Rudy

Gobert and Carl Anthony Towns made a conference final before Joel Embiid, especially if you

remember the beef that Joel Embiid and Kat have had over the years. My guess is at age 33, it'll

probably be his last year of peak prime, which means he has three to four seasons to go. And

here's the beautiful thing about it. While right now in this current moment, the narrative feels

set in stone. We've seen with guys like Giannis, it takes one championship to wash all of it away

And so I do think that if Joel Embiid really wants to completely redeem his legacy, he probably needs

a title. But if he wants to at least wash away a lot of the stain on his legacy, he needs to at

least make a conference finals, hopefully at least get to an NBA finals. So what do you think? Do you

think it's fair the hate that Joel Embiid gets and I'm not talking about the foul baiting or some of

his dirty plays I'm specifically talking about his postseason production or do you think that he has

had some of the worst luck in NBA history and he should be given a pass until his career is over

either way if you're a Sixer fan it has to be easy to continually saying there's always next year

Joel Embiid arguably again had his best regular season of his career this year up until getting

hurt and with Tyrese Maxey taking that leap plus all of the cap space they have the Sixers could

have the most talented roster that actually has chemistry in Joel Embiid's career thank you so

much for watching if you enjoyed this video check out the video I just made on the Minnesota

Timberwolves being a team of destiny or either of my videos on the Clippers and Suns being failed

super teams and as always we'll see you on the hardwood