Joel Embiid Embraces His Lowest Point of the 2018-2019 NBA Season
You can't troll a real internet troll - It's impossible. Philadelphia 76ers All-Star center Joel Embiid has become somewhat of an internet troll ever since his arrival in the NBA. As Embiid had a lot of free time on his hands early on in his career due to injuries, he had to be productive off the court as well. So during his downtime, Embiid spent time on the internet being a comedic follow for Sixers and NBA fans as a whole.
As Embiid has returned to the court over the last few seasons, he hasn't had much time on the internet to mess around. With the Sixers reaching the second round of the playoffs for two consecutive years, the Sixers' big man has shifted all of his focus towards the actual game itself, and less on trolling his followers and his opponents.
However, once Embiid sensed that his emotions could get used against him via the internet, he decided to troll himself before everybody else really could. Just this past weekend, the Sixers season came to an end in the most dramatic way possible. As they fought back and forth with the Toronto Raptors in a do-or-die Game 7, they needed just one more defensive stop to take the game into overtime.
The Raptors inbounded the ball to none other than Kawhi Leonard, and the man who killed the Sixers single handily throughout the series officially put a dagger into their hearts once and for all. And with a buzzer-beater shot under pressure with Embiid in his face, Leonard drained the most critical bucket of his short stint with the Raptors, sending the Sixers home without a chance to win in overtime.
In a matter of seconds, Embiid broke down in tears while still on the court. As Raptors' center Marc Gasol embraced the Sixers big man to give some words of encouragement, Embiid couldn't fight the emotions. Since Embiid couldn't hold himself together, the television cameras couldn't help but capture the emotions live for everybody to see. Naturally, the internet started poking fun at the man, almost immediately.
So what does Joel Embiid do? He embraces the fun. If you hop over to Embiid's official Twitter account, you will find that he actually changed his profile picture to not one, but two still shots of his crying moments after the Game 7 loss to the Raptors. Now, making fun of Embiid doesn't seem all that fun to do for the internet trolls when he already made fun of himself. Good move there by the big man. Embiid didn't just update his Twitter though. He also sent out a message via Instagram regarding how he has been feeling since the loss.
"Extremely disappointed and fell short of our goal, but this is the motivation I needed and best believe I’ll be back even better and stronger." Although Embiid only missed one playoff game, despite battling through sickness and injuries, it was clear the big man wasn't even close to one-hundred percent throughout the postseason.
Some say it was due to a poor diet. Others say he simply wasn't in shape. Regardless of what it truly was, Embiid will look to figure it out for next season. After feeling a loss like that knowing all of the missed opportunities due to being sick or hurt, Embiid is undoubtedly going to look to better himself next year to take 'The Process' to the next level.
Justin Grasso covers the Philadelphia 76ers for South Jersey's 97.3 ESPN. You can follow Justin on Twitter: @JGrasso_