Sixers

Joel Embiid Overtakes LeBron for Scoring Title and is Probably Going to Win It

By Kevin Kinkead

Published: Apr 6th, 2022 · 12:10 PM EDT

---

Joel Embiid scored 45 last night and 44 on Sunday in Cleveland to overtake LeBron James in the NBA’s scoring race:

Joel Embiid currently leads the league in scoring with 30.4 PPG.

If he keeps it up, he would be the first center since Shaq and the first international born player to win the scoring title.

He would have the first 30-PPG season by a center since the NBA merger. pic.twitter.com/pGem5sVNii

— StatMuse (@statmuse) April 6, 2022

Those are some incredible nuggets there, and for added context, that Shaq season was back in 1999-2000, so if Embiid gets it done, he’s the first center in 22 years to win the scoring title. He’d also be the first Sixer since Allen Iverson in 2004-2005 to claim it.

Going back over the last five or so years, the only other foreign-born players to sniff the top five of the scoring race are Giannis and Luka Doncic. I kept digging through past seasons and you have to go back almost 15 years to find the next international player who made a push, and that was Dirk Nowitzki way back in the day. Yao Ming had a season where he finished just outside the top 10. When Peja Stojakovic finished third behind Tracy McGrady and A.I., I was only just graduating high school, so it’s been some time.

I think people might not realize the significance of a foreign-born player winning the scoring title and/or MVP. Especially an Africa native. This would do wonders for the game in Cameroon/Ghana/Nigeria/etc, actually probably the entire continent. It’s pretty cool to see.

The Lakers, as you know, were just eliminated from the playoffs. They have three games remaining:

• at Golden State
• vs. OKC
• at Denver

And the Sixers play:

• at Toronto
• vs. Indy
• vs. Detroit

It’s a much easier Sixers schedule, assuming in a vacuum that both Embiid and LeBron are gonna go all out here. Kevin Durant and Giannis are both at 29.9 right now, so we’ll see what happens there. Milwaukee plays Boston on Thursday and Giannis has cooled off through two April games. KD followed up that 55 point game with 18, so we’re seeing more variation there.

It would be sick to see Embiid win the scoring title, and then go on to win MVP, unless the VORP dorks have their say.