Joel Embiid is getting dragged all over the internet because Donovan Mitchell advanced to the Eastern Conference Finals

Joel Embiid is getting dragged all over the internet right now because Donovan Mitchell advanced to the Eastern Conference Finals on Sunday and Embiid is now the only player in the last 40 years to make an All-NBA First Team without a single conference finals appearance in his entire career. The last player to hold that distinction was Dominique Wilkins in 1986.

I’m only writing about this because it’s everywhere. Every NBA account, every Reddit thread, every podcast, every comment section. They hate The Process. We know this. Any chance to jump on Embiid and the internet takes it immediately. They don’t care about the context. They don’t care about the circumstances. They just see the stat and pile on.

Leave Joel Embiid Alone

Joel Embiid is now the ONLY first team All-NBA member from the past DECADE to have not reach a Conference Finals in their career.

😬😬😬 pic.twitter.com/Flbm6BSzyI

— Polymarket Hoops (@PolymarketHoops) May 18, 2026

The Stat Is Real and It’s Ugly

I’m not going to pretend it doesn’t look bad because it does. Joel Embiid has been in the NBA since 2014. He won MVP in 2023. He made All-NBA First Team that same year. He has never made it past the second round of the playoffs.

Mitchell getting to the conference finals removed the only other active player who shared that distinction with Embiid. Now he stands alone. The only All-NBA First Team player in four decades without a conference finals appearance.

That’s a real number that exists and Joel Embiid has to own it to some degree. He’s the franchise player. The results are tied to him whether the failures are his fault or not. That’s how it works when you’re the face of the organization. You get the credit when things go well and you get the blame when they don’t.

The Internet Doesn’t Care About the Actual Context

Here’s what the internet doesn’t want to talk about when they’re making their Joel Embiid memes and dunking on him in comment sections.

They don’t care that Markelle Fultz and Ben Simmons aren’t in the league anymore. Two top overall picks that the Sixers drafted during The Process who turned out to be complete busts for entirely different reasons.

The franchise wasted two number one picks on guys who either couldn’t shoot or wouldn’t play. Those were supposed to be the running mates for Embiid. Those were supposed to be the supporting cast that pushed the Sixers over the top.

They don’t care about the actual Process years. The 10-win seasons. The tanking. The misery. The years of being the worst team in basketball on purpose with the promise that it would lead somewhere meaningful. The fans who sat through all of it deserve better than watching the internet reduce the entire experience to an Joel Embiid statline.

They don’t care about the organizational malpractice. Daryl Morey building top-heavy rosters with no bench. Josh Harris ducking the luxury tax at the trade deadline. The McCain trade that gutted the one piece of guard depth the Sixers had. The front office selling when the franchise player begged them to buy. The coaching carousel. The roster instability. The constant churn of supporting cast members around Embiid year after year.

They don’t care that Embiid came back from an appendectomy three weeks early and led a 3-1 comeback against the Celtics this postseason. They don’t care about the 33-point Game 5 or the 34-point Game 7 or the dagger three where he waved off TD Garden.

They don’t care that the Knicks series happened on 48 hours rest after a seven-game war and that Embiid was dealing with hip and ankle injuries on top of the surgery recovery. None of that fits the narrative so none of it gets mentioned.

All they care about is the conference finals stat and the opportunity to roast Joel Embiid one more time.

The Organization Failed Embiid. Not the Other Way Around.

Joel Embiid has been failed by every front office, every coaching staff, and every roster construction decision that has been made around him for a decade.

He has played with Jimmy Butler, Ben Simmons, Tobias Harris, James Harden, Paul George, and none of those pairings produced a conference finals trip because the surrounding pieces were never good enough.

The bench was always too thin. The depth was always insufficient. The front office was always more concerned with cap flexibility and future assets than winning now.

The conference finals drought belongs to the Philadelphia 76ers as an organization. It does not belong to Joel Embiid alone. He has done everything a franchise player can do on the court. He has won MVP. He has put up historic playoff performances. He has played through injuries that would sideline most human beings. The organization around him has failed to build a complete roster at any point during his career.

The internet doesn’t want to hear that because it’s easier and funnier to blame one guy. Joel Embiid is a big target. He’s emotional. He says things after losses that don’t sound great. He misses games. He has a supermax contract. He’s easy to meme. The organizational failures that actually caused the conference finals drought require nuance and context that doesn’t fit into a Reddit post or a Twitter dunk.

I’ll keep defending Embiid until the evidence tells me to stop. The evidence hasn’t told me to stop. The evidence tells me the Sixers organization has wasted a generational talent for a decade and now the internet wants to blame that talent for the organization’s failures.

They hate The Process. They always have. Nothing new.

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