Joel Embiid Became an NBA Superstar by…Watching YouTube?

As a gangly kid who had just arrived in the U.S. from Cameroon, West Africa, 16-year-old Joel Embiid had a lot of the gifts he’d eventually put to use in the NBA: the height, the athleticism, the massive 7-foot-6-inch wingspan. 

But the one thing he couldn’t do was actually shoot a basketball. 

Embiid didn’t get into the game at all until he was 15. Today, he has become not just the lynchpin of a championship-chasing team in Philadelphia, but he’s also arguably the best basketball player on the planet. And he was recently named the NBA’s Most Valuable Player for the current season.

It’s possible that this would never have happened if it weren’t for Youtube.

In a 2016 interview with Sports Illustrated, he shared a secret to his success: learning to shoot long-distance shots by watching, in his words, videos of “regular white people” on the internet.

Yes, Embiid is a big dude, but there are a lot of those in the NBA. What sets him apart is his ability to do more than just stand under the basket and dunk. For a 7-footer, he’s got an incredibly efficient jump shot.

During his career, Embiid has sunk more than 33 percent of his three-pointers. No one is going to confuse him with Steph Curry, but that’s a better three-point shooting percentage than Michael Jordan, and it’s miles ahead of other guys Embiid’s size, most of whom hardly ever score that far from the basket. 

And for that he credits YouTube.

You and I are unlikely to become professional basketball players by wat