NBA Dunk of the Week: Joel Embiid Is Punk as Hell

A brief excerpt from Keith Pomeroy's writeup of the Sixers' 97-86 win over the Pistons on Monday night:

This is post-game trash talk at its most oblivious and savage. A reporter asks about playing against Drummond, and Embiid says he watched film and realized that Drummond doesn't play any defense—extremely true, by the way; it's the primary wellspring of his and the Pistons' ongoing NBA shittiness the past few years. So, when he got on the court, and Andre talked some shit, Embiid kicked his ass. No subtext, no shade, no generalizations, just I looked him up. He sucks at defense so I killed him all night. Who cares?

It's like someone on the Sixers tried to give Embiid media training—using clichés, displaying a broad respect for your opponent, not doing weird Twitter posts, all that shit—and he just said, "Hmm. Nah. I'll just say whatever. I couldn't care less, honestly."

This kind of simplistic, balls-out method—I saw the guy, he sucks, so I took it to him—is inherent in Joel's game, too. He is the NBA's most beautifully raw product, lacking the extraordinary subtlety of some of his league-mates but making up for it by always, ALWAYS going out there and imposing himself, yamming a dunk when he has one, taking a three when he's open, spinning around any post defender who isn't as gigantic as he is.

It's big man basketball stripped down to its barest essentials, played with style and attitude, along with a complete lack of fucks about what the squares might think about you. There is no way around this, people: Joel Embiid is fucking punk as hell.

Which brings us to the inaugural VICE Sports NBA Dunk of the Week. The Sixers' Jerryd Bayless, a bald journeyman, goes away from a screen Embiid is setting. Drummond—who sucks at defense, you may recall—way overcommits to the trap. Bayless passes out to a rolling Joel, streaking toward the hoop, Drummond makes an insanely ineffectual, vainglorious swipe at Joel, and lifts it just in time to avoid the foul and, ultimately, direct blame for his colossal fuck-up. Meanwhile, Avery Bradley, who is pretty good at defense, sees this malfeasance unspooling in front of his eyes, and charges toward the rim in, I suppose, a vainglorious stab at doing something to mend this disastrous defensive possession for the Pistons.

But Embiid, simplicity itself, powers right through this 6'2'' guard on his suicide mission. Their hands interlock in the air, destabilizing both after landing on the hardwood. Bradley, the victim of this dunk both in the sense of being placed on a poster by Embiid and being completely fucked over by his teammate Drummond, stumbles around and recovers along the baseline. Meanwhile, Embiid's head jerks back, the ball hits him in the chest. He also falls and stumbles but more dramatically than Bradley, his legs—previously moving in a simple, profound line—sprawling akimbo in every connection, his massive arms propping him up and maintaining his balance. He recovers and runs back on defense, one hand in the air. In this post-dunk acrobatic haze, a simple straight line dunk transmuted by a series of bad decisions, Joel radiates more Vīrya than most NBA players do in a lifetime, sprawling out in a 1!-2!-3!-4! mess grown from the seed of a simple roll action and a total disregard for the interference of his opponents.

This dunk could only happen now, at this time, on this day. Soon, Bradley will realize this trying shit isn't worth it on the Pistons. He will realize that Drummond isn't Kevin Garnett or even Amir Johnson, that it is in his very nature to betray everyone who has a heads-up attitude on defense, and rotating into a poster on his behalf is a fucking waste of time. Meanwhile, defenses of every stripe, good and bad, will slowly realize that leaving Embiid alone to grab a ball and drive it in a straight line to the hoop is truly the worst idea you can possibly have on a basketball court.

But while we have still Embiid as he is in this moment, let him sweep you away. He makes the simplest basketball shit amazing again, both by dint of his extraordinary energy and by existing in the NBA's high-modernist period, where nearly every bucket is the result of a monumental tactical effort. He is a blessing from the God of Punk on high.