Page 5 - Joel Embiid Development Plan
P. 5
Post Play
Joel has turned himself into a dominant post player in the NBA. Posting up is one of his biggest strengths. His efficiency of 1.048 point per possession ranks 2nd among NBA bigs behind Jonas Valanciunas, and his 8.5 points per game in the post rank 2nd behind Lamarcus Aldridge. Joel can score on both blocks, back to the baskets with a series of hooks and counters, and he can also face up to shoot and drive. It is obvious he has already spent time working on those moves. My goal would be to keep on improving those, as well as adding a couple. In this type of situation, I like to give the player some ownership in their development and we can choose together what move we would like to add. If Joel had no suggestions, I would give him several examples of moves, from current and past players, I think would complement his game and I would use film to show him (e.g. clips of Hakeem Olajuwon or Kobe Bryant in the post).
How can he improve?
Even in an area where Joel excels like posting up, there is a lot of room for improvement. 2 issues jump out in Joel’s post up game. First, he turns the ball over too much. His 13.1% turnover rate in the post is too high. His turnover rate goes up to 21.3% in post double situations. A player his caliber will get doubled, and he must be able to punish the opponents who decide to send two people at him. Let’s look at Joel’s turnovers and see how it can be improved.
One of the reasons for his turnovers are his lack of discipline or his frustration while posting up. There’s always a referee on that baseline looking at it who is ready to call an offensive foul. Here are 3 examples of Joel using his hands and hitting the defender in the face/neck area to get position.
Problem #1: Lack of discipline
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