Joel Embiid Says He Considered Quitting The NBA After His First Year In The League

It may have taken Joel Embiid a little while to get his career going, but once the big man got on the floor, he became an immediate star. What’s really weird to think about is that there was a chance none of it happened, because while the 76ers star is a force to be reckoned with now, he almost quit the sport of basketball altogether.

Back at Kansas, when Embiid was still getting his basketball career off the ground, he almost quit after getting dunked on in a scrimmage. Of course, his time in college panned out and he became a top prospect in the 2014 NBA Draft and very likely would have gone first if not for a back injury. Then, after reaching the league, Embiid needed foot surgery. Dealing with injuries, along his brother passing away back in Cameroon in a car accident, Embiid almost quit the NBA entirely.

“After my first year, when I found out that I needed a second surgery, and that was at the time that my brother had just died, too,” Embiid told ESPN. “So to me, in my head, I was like ‘What am I even doing here?’ I have one year of salary under my belt, that’s enough to go back to Cameroon and live with it, because also I hadn’t seen my brother for a long time, for about three or four years, so it was really painful. So I thought about quitting. Basketball wasn’t working, injuries, that was really the first time I had surgery, and to do it a second time it was just bad. It was a bad feeling.”

It’s worth noting that Embiid first started playing basketball in 2010. He’s a superstar now, but this isn’t something that’s always been a part of his life, so while he was struggling early on to even get on the court, it would have made sense for him to consider going somewhere he was more comfortable and happy. Between his age and the hurdles he had to clear, it makes perfect sense why he’d consider calling it a career.

Still, it’s great that he decided to stick around, because it’s resulted in him becoming one of the best basketball players on earth. The sky’s the limit for what he can accomplish, and it would have been a shame if we never saw him reach his considerable potential.