Joel Embiid's All-NBA Snub Causes Adam Silver to Reconsider Format

Despite being one of the NBA’s top players in 2021-2022, Philadelphia 76ers star center Joel Embiid doesn’t have any notable awards to show for it. For the

Despite being one of the NBA’s top players in 2021-2022, Philadelphia 76ers star center Joel Embiid doesn’t have any notable awards to show for it.

For the second-straight season, Embiid landed himself in the MVP conversation throughout the year. When the regular season concluded, Embiid was named one of three finalists once again alongside Denver Nuggets center Nikola Jokic and Milwaukee Bucks big man, Giannis Antetokounmpo.

Embiid had a strong case to win the award, but Jokic earned his spot as the back-to-back winner when the voting results were revealed. Many believed that Embiid was snubbed when it came to the Most Valuable Player award and that wouldn’t be the only accolade to cause fans to feel that way.

Shortly after Jokic won MVP, the NBA announced its All-NBA teams. Once again, Embiid was chosen as the second team’s center, although he could’ve been voted in as a forward as well.

Despite being voted as the second-most valuable player in the league and winning the NBA’s scoring title after playing in a career-high of 68 games, Embiid lost out on first-team All-NBA to Jokic, Antetokounmpo, and Boston Celtics star Jayson Tatum. 

As a result of the voting, NBA Commissioner Adam Silver was asked about a potential change to the format ahead of Game 1 of the 2022 NBA Finals. 

Adam Silver says that “a fair amount of consideration” is going into changing All-NBA to a positionless ballot. “The current system may result in some inequities” referring to Nikola Jokic and Joel Embiid being unable to both be on the first team.

— Tim Bontemps (@TimBontemps) June 3, 2022

According to Tim Bontemps of ESPN, Silver mentioned that “a fair amount of consideration” is going into a possible change. Perhaps in the future, the All-NBA team will be positionless. And instead of awarding the best players at specific positions, it will award the top players regardless of where they play on the court. 

Had that been the case already, Embiid would more than likely have at least two first-team All-NBA selections as he was the MVP runner-up over the last two seasons. Unfortunately, Embiid comes up empty in that category once again and instead notched his fourth second-team selection this year. 

Justin Grasso covers the Philadelphia 76ers for All76ers, a Sports Illustrated channel. You can follow him for live updates on Twitter: @JGrasso_.

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