That sound you heard last night was Karl-Anthony Towns reminding us that he’ll always be in the shadows of his peers. On Monday night in Philadelphia, Joel Embiid painted his magnum opus en route to a 70-point, 18-rebound exhibition of scoring prowess. Embiid’s 70 also came on the 18th anniversary of Philly’s own Kobe Bryant traumatizing Jalen Rose and the Raptors with 81 points.
Per minute, Joel Embiid is the most productive scorer in NBA history. For every 36 minutes he is on the floor Embiid is capable of creating buckets at a prolific pace. As of Tuesday, Embiid is now the only player in NBA history to average more than 50 points per 48 minutes. The caveat is that he’s playing 14 fewer minutes a night than Wilt Chamberlain did during his 1962 season.
Victor Wembanyama might be the future of basketball, but against the Philadelphia 76ers, he got smacked with a hard dose of the present reality he lives in. Embiid’s game isn’t the most aesthetically pleasing, but he administers enough punishment in the paint to make defenders look like inflatable tube men. On the perimeter, his face-up game is pristine. Beyond the arc, he’s shooting at the new league average of 36 percent.
And yet, Embiid has become a target of scorn for his ability to draw free throws, and then knock ‘em down. Being upset about rampant three-point shooting is old news. Crying about free-throw merchants is the new wave. For the past few weeks, NBA gasbags have been obsessed with Embiid’s record free-throw rate.
You know the discourse surrounding Embiid is cooked when the first question in the chat during his 34-point half was, “How many free throws?”
To answer the question, Embiid got to the line 23 times and drained 21 of those attempts. Without free throws, he notched 47 points. Cry about that. Wembanyama had a subdued reaction to Embiid’s game, but reminded everyone what this era is about:
“It’s a big man’s game.”
Nikola Jokic is the NBA’s best player until he can actually be dethroned in the regular season. Embiid is the worthiest challenger at the moment, though, while Wemby is just embarking on his quest for the crown Embiid and Jokic are wrasslin’ over. We are witnessing a generational season from Embiid, which only ratchets up the pressure on Daryl Morey to make a trade at or near the deadline that doesn’t render all of this moot. There’s a good chance Embiid wins another scoring title, misses a handful more games to fall under the 65-game threshold, making him ineligible for All-NBA Teams, the MVP and his season gets dumped in the trash bin of history.
Embiid wasn’t the only big setting nets on fire though.
Simultaneously, Towns was registering 62 points – in a loss – against the Charlotte Hornets. The anchor of their defense, Mark Williams has missed the last few weeks nursing a back contusion for a month and a half.
However, in the case of Towns, Minnesota couldn’t even close a W because they got caught up in the pursuit of Towns’ career night. Towns actually cooled off considerably after his 44-point first half. In fact, the Timberwolves became so focused on securing a 60-burger for Towns, that they forgot it was a tight game, leading Chris Finch to criticize his team for their immature play.
Towns’ own coach was less laudatory of him than Wembanyama was about Embiid putting him and the Spurs on a shrimp skewer for 37 minutes.
“I mean, there’s lots of times when, just because you’ve scored two or three or four points in a row, or baskets in a row, you know obviously we’re going to try to feed a hot hand, look for a hot hand, but at some point, we got to get back to making the right play, we got to get back to doing the right things,” Finch said in his postgame availability.
“Like I said, there’s a lot of ways to be immature,” Finch added. “There’s always a lot of ways to be immature. There was a lot of immature performances here throughout the roster. We totally disrespected the game, ourselves and we got exactly what we deserved.”
Finch was in full Grinch mode. Ironically, Finch loves scoring bigs. He was the original Jokic whisperer in Denver. He was the architect of the Pelicans’ inverted offense with Demarcus Cousins and Anthony Davis, he previously worked with Zion Williamson, and he’s done well enough integrating Gobert into the T-Wolves that they’ve secured the No. 1 seed. Yes, they are quietly still the top team in the West despite the incessant chatter about the Oklahoma City Thunder’s ascent.
Towns could have been the Embiid of this era, but for whatever reason, never developed the physicality or preference for combativeness on either side of the ball needed to excel at an All-NBA level as a true big in this age, or any for that matter. Remember those pesky free throws? Embiid takes nearly twice as many trips to the line as Towns.
However, if Towns can’t be an elite big in an era where the style and officiating are tilted in his favor, then where would he fit in? George Mikan was filthy in his day, so don’t you dare suggest he’d be ‘that dude’ at the dawn of the league.
Critics of Embiid’s frequent free-throw trips should rejoice in knowing that Towns only drained half as many free throws as Embiid. When his shot isn’t falling, Embiid can contribute in more ways, and that’s not including his superior defense. Towns is one of the greatest living three-pointing shooting bigs, but in the low-post, he’s a minnow. Everything Towns does, Jokic and Embiid do better and more efficiently. On a career night, Towns was humbled once again.
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