Joel Embiid of Sixers won the NBA MVP award, defeating Giannis Antetokounmpo and Nikola Joki

This season, Joel Embiid rose to the top of his field, and on Tuesday, he was named the NBA’s Most Valuable Player.

The 76ers star becomes only the fifth MVP in the franchise’s history and the first Philly player since Hall of Famer Allen Iverson in 2001 to win the award. Embiid got 915 focuses and 73 ahead of everyone else votes from the media to handily win. Nikola Joki, a Denver Nuggets center who has won the MVP two times, finished second with 674 points and 15 first-place votes. With 606 points and 12 first-place votes, Milwaukee Bucks power forward Giannis Antetokounmpo finished third.

“I don’t even know where to start,” Embiid said to TNT’s host Ernie Johnson Jr. after being announced the winner on the NBA Tip-Off show. “You know, it’s been a long time coming. You know, a lot of hard work. I’ve been through a lot.

“I’m not just talking about basketball. I’m talking about everything as of life, you know my story. You know where I come from, how I got here, and what it took for me to be here. So it feels good. I don’t know what to say. It’s amazing.”

At the age of 16, Cameroonian Embiid moved to the United States to play basketball.

Due to two surgeries on his feet, Embiid missed his first two NBA seasons. Then he had season-finishing a medical procedure to fix a meniscus tear in his left knee during the 2016-17 mission. After that, Embiid sustained a number of other injuries. Additionally, he will miss the beginning of the Eastern Conference semifinals series against the Boston Celtics due to a right knee injury.

However, Embiid has been able to overcome injuries and produce his best season yet in 2022-23.

With an average of 33.1 points, eighth in rebounds (10.2), and seventh in blocks (1.7), he won the scoring title for the second time in a row. Additionally, he was named player of the month for the Eastern Conference three times.

“He’s the best player in the league!” P.J. Tucker said, before repeating it for emphasis. “I guess it’s always a debate [on who should have won], but I don’t think there was a debate all year.

“Complete domination all year.”

Following Embiid’s finishes as MVP runner-up in 2021 and 2022, the honor is his.

The Sixers accepted he ought to have won it last season. That’s when Embiid became not only the first center since Hall of Famer Shaquille O’Neal (29.7 points in 1999-2000) to win the scoring title (with 30.6 points in 2021-22), but also the first center since Moses Malone (31.1 points in 1981-82) to average more than 30 points per game.

However, Jokić won the honor subsequent to turning into the main player in association history to record 2,000 focuses (2,004), 1,000 bounce back (1,019), and 500 helps (584) in a solitary season.

Due to the number of games played, it was hard to argue that the Nuggets center would win over Embiid in 2021. Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, Joki was limited to 72 games instead of every game in a season. Embiid missed 21.

However, presently, Embiid has overcome the challenge, joining Lobby of Famers Shrink Chamberlain, Julius Erving, Malone, and Iverson as the main Sixers to win the honor. And it demonstrates how far he has come since Doc Rivers was hired as coach by the Sixers on October 3, 2020.

Prior to that, Embiid was an elite player who frequently lacked fitness. Rivers, on the other hand, has coached a number of Hall of Famers, including Tracy McGrady, Paul Pierce, Ray Allen, and Kevin Garnett. He is aware, however, that a strong work ethic and leadership abilities are necessary for greatness.

As a result, Rivers was direct with Embiid and emphasized modifications to the recluse’s approach. He pleaded with Embiid to become a better teammate and player. Additionally, the coach found ways to increase Embiid’s impact on the court by putting him at the free-throw line and facing the basket, where teams can’t double-team him as easily.

“I think it started last year with his conditioning and understanding how serious you have to be in this game,” Rivers said. “How serious, not just as a player, but just the little things you do to impact your entire team.

“This year, I think he came in in better shape, even doing more with his teammates and leading. He’s still young, and he’s still growing up right in front of our eyes. It’s a pretty cool thing.”

The 29-year-old became the sixth foreign player to win the award, joining Steve Nash (Canada), Hakeem Olajuwon (Nigeria), Dirk Nowitzki (Germany), and Joki (Serbia). Additionally, he is the third foreign MVP winner in a row. The honor went to Antetokoumpo in both the 2018-19 and 2019-20 seasons.

It should not come as a surprise that Embiid prevented Joki from becoming the fourth player to win three MVP awards in a row.

“Nobody could guard him all year,” Tucker said of Embiid. “He’s destroying teams’ double- and triple-teams, whatever they threw at him. Nobody could stop him and to still have a really successful season, finishing third in the East, I don’t know what else to say.

“To get all those double- and triple-teams and still be able to score in the 50s and 30s and 40s every night is pretty incredible.”

Embiid wrapped up with vocation highs of 59 places and seven blocks against the Utah Jazz in November. Throughout the season, he would play games with 53 and 52 points. Embiid additionally scored during the 30s multiple times and during the 40s multiple times.

“It isn’t even about the scoring for me,” Paul Reed said. “It’s about the defensive end. I saw him make some big-time defensive plays that are not normal. Like going in and contesting Jayson Tatum and DeMar DeRozan at the rim, and those dudes are aggressive [while] attacking guys.

But will people honor Embiid’s MVP nomination now that he is out of the playoffs?

On April 20 in Game 3 of the Sixers’ first-round series against the Brooklyn Nets, the seventh-year veteran, who has a long history of injuries, sprained the lateral collateral ligament in his right knee.

“There’s no way winning MVP that there’s any damper,” Rivers said of the award being announced while Embiid is injured. “[It is] an amazing achievement. Obviously, you would rather see him do it and playing, but they picked the date to give him the award, we don’t.”