Embiid was A teenager in Cameroon when he first saw Kobe Bryant in all his swaggering, gunslinging glory during the 2009 NBA Finals. Embiid didn't speak English and had never played organized basketball, yet he knew he wanted to be like Kobe someday.
"I just liked his mentality, the way he was playing. He just didn't care," Embiid says. "I think I needed to figure out a way to be like that more."
In another life-- or another body-- Embiid would probably be out running sand dunes like Bryant did at 4 a.m. as a way of channeling the restless id inside him. But Embiid's body would never tolerate that, so the competitiveness manifests elsewhere. It's why he trash-talks and taunts on the court right up to the line where someone might swing at him. Why he plays video games deep into the night, even bringing his PlayStation on road trips. "I just love winning," he says. "When I play, I rarely lose, so it makes me feel good about myself. And I keep winning, winning, winning."
"I played [PlayStation] with him once and said I'll never do it again," Sixers guard T.J. McConnell says. "He talks the most crap ever. ... I wanted to throw the controller out of his apartment building."
Embiid says he's reached out to Bryant on several occasions, drawn to Kobe's supreme confidence. How do you shoot 30-plus times in a game and never feel even the smallest twinge of guilt about it?
"After 15 to 20 shots, I feel like my teammates might be looking at me," Embiid says. "I don't want that to be on me. But I feel like sometimes I need to."
Bryant didn't take all those shots because he had no conscience. He took them, Embiid says, because he knew he could make them. "He was always working on his shot, so that's why he felt like he could.
"When everyone else was partying, he was working on his shot. I have to get a little of that."
So Embiid doesn't drink alcohol or spend much time at parties. He studies classic NBA games like they're textbooks. He watches his contemporaries, like Karl-Anthony Towns, Giannis Antetokounmpo, Kristaps Porzingis, Anthony Davis and Nikola Jokic, knowing he'll likely do battle with them in the playoffs someday.
He studies his own team and thinks there is still room to grow. Simmons' game is limited by his lack of outside shooting, which collapses the space Embiid has to work inside. There will also be an adjustment period when rookie point guard Markelle Fultz returns from a shoulder injury and tries to find his place in the offense.
"We're still working on our chemistry, especially with me and Ben on the court," Embiid says.
"I think with everything, the main thing we have to do is just stay together, because I feel like there's going to be some type of situation where people say who is better between us three. And that's how it splits."
