It officially took him nine seasons to claim his first MVP award, but for big man Joel Embiid, there is still icing that he wants to put on his cake in the form of an NBA Championship.
Before arriving in the USA to play basketball as a sixteen-year-old, Embiid focused on playing volleyball and soccer while living in Yaounde. He didn’t pick up an interest in hoops until he was 15 years old.
After an injury ended his one-and-done season with the Kansas Jayhawks, Embiid entered the league as part of the much-heralded 2014 NBA Draft class (though in reality there were only five players worthy of an All-Star spot, and two worthy of the MVP with a handful of quality role players sprinkled in).
Unfortunately for the Cameroon-born Embiid, his first two years in the NBA found him on the sidelines in street clothes as a recurring foot injury kept him out of action.
Finally, on October 25th, 2016, Embiid made his long-awaited NBA debut and has since become an MVP, a 5-time All-NBA member, and a 7-time All-Star.
While these individual accolades make for an impressive resume, the glaring negative that has plagued the Sixers franchise since they set out their plan to “Trust The Process” is that Embiid has been unable to carry his team past the second round of the playoffs in six attempts.
One of the constants in Embiid’s seven-year-plus career has been his charm on the mic and the quotes he’s provided us before, during, or post-game, whether they are serious or comical.
The Best Quotes From Joel Embiid

1.) “I pretended my way to the NBA. I seriously got to the league by watching YouTube and living in the gym. There’s no other way to explain it.” – Joel Embiid
2.) “My very first scrimmage at Kansas, I got dunked on so hard by Tarik Black that I almost quit. Tarik dunked on me so hard that I was looking at plane tickets home. This guy was a senior. He was a grown man. I didn’t know what was going on. He got his own rebound and dunked over me so hard that everything went in slow motion.” – Joel Embiid
3.) “I had this DVD that my coach in Cameroon had mailed to me when I first came to America. It was an hour-long tape of Hakeem Olajuwon and some other legendary big men. I probably watched that DVD every single day for three years.” – Joel Embiid
4.) “When I play ‘2K’, I’ll play in GM mode. And I choose different teams. But I always trade for myself because I’m unstoppable. Literally, there’s no way to stop me in ‘2K’.” – Joel Embiid
5.) “I swear to God, my life is a movie…When I came over from Cameroon at 16, I didn’t know any English, didn’t know a single person in America, didn’t really understand the culture except for like basic hip-hop…I had just started playing basketball literally — literally — three months before I got an offer to come play high school ball in Florida.” – Joel Embiid
6.) “I’m not really an injury-prone player. I just had that one injury that took, like, two years.” – Joel Embiid
7.) “The Process is never going to end. It’s an ongoing thing. I don’t think it’s ever going to stop. As I have explained before, it’s a process for making it to the playoffs, it’s another one to make the conference finals, another one to actually go to The Finals and win the championship.” – Joel Embiid
8.) “Improbable doesn’t mean impossible.” – Joel Embiid
9.) “I feel like Americans don’t really have any idea of what’s going on in the world, especially us Africans. I feel like when they think about Africans, they think about just us running around with lions and tigers and all those other animals.” – Joel Embiid
10.) “I’m actually really good at everything I do.” – Joel Embiid
11.) “I’m not cocky, I’m humble, but I think I can really be special, one of the top players in the league.” – Joel Embiid
12.) “A lot of people just think I’m a big man, but I’m a basketball player. I am able to do everything that a basketball player can do – from playmaking and scoring to just passing the ball and just being a leader and post presence.” – Joel Embiid
13.) “I want to be that guy – I want to be Kobe Bryant. I want to be Tim Duncan. I want to be Dirk Nowitzki – stay with one team my whole career.” – Joel Embiid
14.) “That’s the whole point of playing basketball – having fun.” – Joel Embiid
15.) “I love it when people talk trash.” – Joel Embiid

Funny Joel Embiid Quotes
16.) “You know how I learned to shoot? I watched white people. Just regular white people. They really put their elbow in and finish up top. You can find videos of them online.” – Joel Embiid
17.) “If you had the sh*ts before, you’d know how it feels.” – Joel Embiid on his gastroenteritis before the Sixers’ Game 2 win over the Raptors in the 2019 NBA Playoffs
18.) “I mean, look at myself. I’m 7’2”, I’m good-looking. Women usually love my accent because I’m from Cameroon in Africa. And I’m pretty intelligent too. And I’m funny. I love pretty women. I feel good about myself.” – Joel Embiid when trying to woo Rihanna back in the day
19.) “Hey I want you to come slide in my DMs @KimKardashian…[2 minutes later] Oh I didn’t know you were married sorry @KimKardashian just saw it from the fan’s tweet…have a nice day.” – Joel Embiid on Twitter
20.) “You gotta do your background check. You don’t want to be that guy marrying a girl that someone else in the NBA has been with…I’m sure some guys end up getting married to women that have been around. And maybe on the court they also get told ‘Hey I ****** your wife’.” – Joel Embiid in a 2018 interview with GQ
21.) “That’s not something I wake up in the morning like, I’m gonna go to the court and dunk on people. It’s just usually I go do my regular stuff, play tennis, and then some random fans happen to be talking sh*t, so then I gotta teach them a lesson. And that’s what I do.” – Joel Embiid on dunking on people during the offseason
Is there a Joel Embiid quote we missed? Drop a comment below and we’ll get it added.
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