Photo: Christian Petersen (Getty Images)
Joel Embiid is a gift to the game of basketball, a guy who is one of the best players in the NBA and has a real shot at being named the league’s MVP this year. He’s an unstoppable force on the pitch, so it might not surprise you too much to know that he’s just as relentless off the pitch. Even when playing video games. Against toddlers.
A Story on The Athletic by Jayson Jenks, Rich Hofmann and Rustin Dodd was released today and focuses on stories about Embiid told by those closest to him during his time in the NBA: his coaches, teammates and coaches.
There’s a lot of interesting stuff there about what makes him such a fierce competitor, stories about the work he’s put in to overcome injury, and the fact that he picked up the sport so late in life (Embiid has didn’t start playing basketball in his native Cameroon until he was 16).
But anyway, you can read about stuff like this all the time on a sports website, I’m here today to share the very funny story related to video games. Two of the people interviewed for the piece were Billy Lange, an assistant with the Sixers from 2013-2019, and his wife Alicia, who recall taking Embiid out to dinner one night, and the guy emerged with a backpack ready:
Billy Lange, assistant coach of the 76ers: My wife Alicia and I have four sons. He takes a car service, comes over and Alicia cooks for him. He has this backpack with him. He says to my boys, “Do you guys want to play video games?” Of course, they’ll say yes. And he pulls out his PlayStation.
Alice Long: He literally put it on the main TV in my house. He wanted everyone to see how badly he was beating her.
Billy Long: When I say he beat up my kids, there was no mercy. I think he won a Madden game 98-6.
Alice Long: At that time my children were 7, 9 and 10 years old.
Marc Lange, son of Billy and Alicia: Every time he made a sale, he said something to me, right to my face. One time he went to the bathroom and I got a security with his controller and he was angry.
Alice Long: No mercy.
Billy Long: Then he plays (NBA) 2K, which has all these angles, and my kids used to play like watching the game on TV. But Joel plays from the baseline. He beat her by about 200 points. He was relentless and he talked smack. “Can’t guard me. You can’t stop.” All of it. just giggle. Incredible. While my wife cooks for him.
Alicia Lane: He killed her and laughed all the time. He wiped every kid out of the game.
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Thanks to everyone involved for reminding me of one of my favorite tweets of all time: