Sixers’ Joel Embiid On James Harden Pairing: ‘Everybody Has To Give Up Themselves’

Joel Embiid currently leads the NBA in scoring. James Harden is a top-notch scorer himself. So will the combo work with the 76ers?

Per Keith Pompey of the Philadelphia Inquirer, “some are skeptical,” given that Harden is at his best when he has the ball, taking some time to create opportunities. In the NBA, this is known as being “ball-dominant.”

But Embiid sounds like he believes it can work … provided both stars are willing to make sacrifices.

“We all have to give up ourselves if we want to win,” Embiid said, via Pompey. “If you look at the teams that have won in the past, whether you look at the Golden State teams, even the Lakers or Milwaukee last year, they just moved the ball. They played with each other.

“As I’ve been watching James, you put him in the pick-and-roll and it’s … up there as far as the best playmakers out of that pick-and-roll. So obviously, you add that even more to our offense because that’s what he’s good at. But like I said, we all have to give up ourselves. I got to be more of a pick-and-roll player, pick-and-pop, just to help my teammates and help him.”

The Sixers have been moving in a positive direction lately, and now no longer have the dark cloud of Ben Simmons hanging over the franchise. Harden has come to help save the day, and by all accounts, Philadelphia is somewhere he really wants to play.

“Everybody has to give up themselves, and it’s all about bringing it all together,” Embiid said. “And the focus is about everybody [being] on the same page, about winning. It’s about winning a championship. It doesn’t matter if I go out and score 40 and someone scores 10 and someone else 40 and I score 10, 20 points it doesn’t matter as long as we get the win.

“I think everybody understands that. And that’s good when you got a team on the same page that’s driven by winning a championship, it can go a long way.”