Rah rah! Go Sixers!

Joel Embiid went on the Rights to Ricky Sanchez podcast recently, which is a big moment for Spike Eskin and Mike Levin. I think they had been trying to book him for years, and all it took was a global pandemic and Disney World bubble to get the Sixers center on the only Sixers podcast.

One of the topics discussed was teammate Ben Simmons, which is always a big deal, since people seem to think they secretly hate each other, which is not true. The superstar pair might not spend Friday nights together, eating pizza, as Brett Brown once suggested, but there’s an ever-burgeoning relationship on and off the court.

Said Embiid on the podcast:

“When you think about it, this is only our third year playing together,” Embiid said of him and Simmons. “We’ve only played for three years. The potential that we have, I love him, I want to be with him for the rest of my career because I think he still has a lot of potential and me too, we can get so much better than we are right now. And like I don’t see the point of ever playing with somebody else. That’s someone I’d love to be playing with for the rest of my career.”

Embiid has spoken on the record about double teaming and spacing issues, which stem from Ben Simmons’ inability and/or unwillingness to shoot open shots. It’s no secret that it’s a problem the Sixers have constantly been trying to improve for a while now, so no surprises there.

He touched on that in the podcast, in a nice way:

As far as his jump shot goes, Embiid says he told Simmons to just be comfortable.

“I’ve always told him, if you’re not comfortable don’t do it,” Embiid said on Simmons shooting the ball. “You gotta be comfortable. And then he finally takes one and he makes it and that gives him more comfort level to take the next ones.

“You think about what he can accomplish in a few years once he starts knocking those shots regularly and it just takes him to a different level.”

That first quote is probably the most effusive Embiid-on-Simmons praise we’ve heard. To say that you want to spend your entire career with a player is not meaningless, and resonates both internally and externally.

Now that we’ve established this, let’s get back on the court and play some basketball. Let’s get some game film to analyze and clip and restart this season.

Here’s the full RTRS pod with Embiid:

Rights To Ricky Sanchez · Joel Embiid Finally Comes On The Ricky and Sixers Bubble Predictions