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Joel Embiid keeping busy playing street ball, trolling the Celtics

"He's a public treasure."

Sixers center Joel Embiid talks on his mobile phone before meeting with the media after practice in Lavietes Pavilion at Harvard University on May 2, 2018.
Sixers center Joel Embiid talks on his mobile phone before meeting with the media after practice in Lavietes Pavilion at Harvard University on May 2, 2018.Read moreYONG KIM / Staff Photographer
    by Rob Tornoe
    Published 

With the Sixers' season over, the hottest spot to watch basketball in Philadelphia these days is a public court at 10th and Lombard Streets.

For the past week, Sixers star Joel Embiid has been appearing randomly at the South Philly spot, taking on challengers in pickup games of street ball.

On Monday, Sixers fan Andrew Straitman was walking back to his car from the Acme on South Street around 6 p.m. when he saw about two dozen people watching a pickup basketball game. He walked over and captured video of Embiid bouncing a basketball off another player's face before laying down a windmill dunk on his head.

The video, which Straitman sent to friends and was shared by NBC Sports college basketball writer Rob Dauster, quickly racked up more than 1 million views.

"I love seeing athletes who represent our city actually out interacting with fans and enjoying where they live," Straitman said. "If it was cool for me to see it, imagine how great it was for the people who actually were on the court."

Ryan Walter also randomly happened across Embiid on Monday. Walter was driving back to his apartment near the basketball court when he noticed one guy towering over everyone else.

"I was like, 'No way that's him again!' " said Walter, who pulled over and captured a video of Embiid dunking.

"The fact that he's so open to meeting fans and interacting with them is something that's rarely seen with athletes these days," Walter said, "and it's something we can't take for granted if we want him to spend his whole career in a Sixers uniform."

Embiid was spotted on the same court Friday by Felicia Ricci, who said on The Rights to Ricky Sanchez podcast that Embiid was having fun jawing with two random players on the court.

"There was constant trash talking back and forth, which was hilarious," Ricci said on the podcast. "At the end, what's not on the video … he walked off and said something to the effect of 'That's what you get for trash-talking an NBA player.' "

Embiid didn't spend all his free time over the weekend on city courts. He also reveled in the Boston Celtics' loss to the Cleveland Cavaliers in Game 7 of the Eastern Conference finals Sunday night.

Embiid has been trolling the Celtics since Game 6, when he broke a nearly two-week Twitter silence to dub Boston center Aron Baynes as "Man bun." That drew a strong response from Celtics fans, which Embiid acknowledged on his Twitter account early Sunday night.

Andrew Brandt, director of the Jeffrey S. Moorad Center for Sports Law at Villanova and a columnist for Sports Illustrated's Monday Morning Quarterback, summed up what sports fans in Philadelphia think about Embiid in just four words.

"He's a public treasure," Brandt wrote on Twitter.