“The MVP race is over. » In early April, the coach of the Philadelphia 76ers (Sixers), Doc Rivers, was right. Tuesday, May 2, his pivot Joel Embiid (29) won his first “most valuable player” trophy (MVP, best player) of the season. After two second places behind the Serbian Nikola Jokic – long favorite to succeed him on the list – the Cameroonian became the second African to obtain the supreme individual distinction of the National Basketball Association (NBA) – after the Nigerian Hakeem Olajuwon in 1994.
Monday, with a knee injury, Joel Embiid followed his team’s victory against the Boston Celtics (119-115) from the bench in the first game of the Eastern Conference semi-final. A success that allows Philadelphia to take an option for qualification in the conference final, a level that the Sixers have not reached since 2001. They were then guided by Allen Iverson, the last MVP of the Pennsylvania franchise.
That Philadelphia finds the summits thanks to the advent of “JoJo” (one of his nicknames) is no coincidence. The native of Yaoundé (Cameroon) embodies the long-term strategy of the franchise, the project « Trust the process » (“trust the process”) launched at the dawn of the 2013-2014 season by Sam Hinkie, then general manager.
At the beginning of the 2010s, the Philadelphia team vegetated in the middle of the table: neither too good to hope for a title, nor too bad to avoid the playoffs – and hope to be “rewarded” by the “draft”, or repechage, sort of large purse for university and foreign players where the worst teams select first. If not authorized, the tanking is then known. But Sam Hinkie develops this strategy aimed at losing as many matches as possible to tumble in the standings and get better “draft” choices, over several years in a row. “They tell us every game, every day: ‘Trust the process'”explained full-back Tony Wroten to ESPN in 2015.
Slow process
In 2016, two years after being “drafted” in third position by Philadelphia despite a broken right foot, Joel Embiid appropriated the term “process”. “I really feel like I am the process, the process revolves around me”, he then assures Sports Illustrated. At point register “The Process” as a trademark.
For him, as for Sixers fans, the process has been slow. During the first two seasons of his NBA career, the Cameroonian pivot did not play a single minute. Due to foot and back problems; but also the choice of the leaders of his franchise, who extend their method and win the first choice of the “draft” twice in a row – in 2016 and 2017.
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