“I swear to God, my life is a movie.”
That was Joel Embiid, in a Players’ Tribune article, trying to explain his swift rise to stardom. He went from an unknown teenager in Cameroon, to a freshman standout at Kansas, to one of the best players in the NBA — with some career-threatening injuries sprinkled in between, for good measure.
Once compared to Greg Oden, Embiid now garners comparisons to Hakeem Olajuwon. His spot on SI.com’s Top 100 acknowledges that meteoric rise, with The Process coming in at 9. Anthony Davis was the only big man ranked higher.