By now, Joel Embiid‘s career trajectory is a familiar one to anyone who’s been paying even a modicum of attention to the Sixers star’s rise to fame. The Cameroon native was a standout at Kansas during his lone college season and was projected as potentially the top pick in the 2014 Draft until an injury dropped him to No. 3 for Philadelphia.
That injury caused him to miss his first two seasons in the NBA, but since then, he’s established himself as one of the league’s most dominate players, not to mention one of its most colorful personalities.
What’s most impressive is that he didn’t even start playing basketball until he was 15. Yet he proved to be a quick study, and by the time he landed on Monteverde Academy’s JV squad in 2012, he was already a force to be reckoned with. Behold:
Embiid has said he modeled his game after Hakeem Olajuwon, and though he was very much still a raw talent at that age, the footwork, agility, and athleticism offered a glimpse of what was to come.
Embiid and the Sixers are in the midst of their best start in recent memory and seem like they’ll get the chance to make a long-awaited return to the postseason. They’ve been proving all season long that they can compete with any team in the NBA, and if they can stay healthy, they should be an Eastern Conference juggernaut for many years to come.
