Basketball: Cameroon's Joel Embiid named NBA Most Valuable Player

Cameroon's Joel Embiid during a basketball game with his club, the Philadelphia 76ers', against the Brooklyn Nets, on April 20, 2023, in New York City. © Frank Franklin II / AP

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Cameroonian Joël Embiid enters the history of the NBA and African basketball: he was named best player of the season Tuesday, May 2. At 29 years old, the Philadelphia pivot becomes the second African player in the League to obtain this very prestigious title, after Nigerian Hakeem Olajuwon.

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Nothing predestined Joel Embiid to go down in basketball history. Born in 1994 in Yaoundé, from a military father and handball player and a housewife mother, the young Joël began by excelling in volleyball.

It was only at the age of 15 that he went from nets to baskets and discovered the NBA by watching videotapes: Nigerian legend Hakeem Olajuwon became his model.

Spotted in the training camp of his compatriot, the international Luc Mbah a Moute, the Cameroonian crosses the Atlantic at 16 years old and tries the American adventure.

Trained at the University of Kansas, Joel Embiid, highly anticipated, joined the NBA in 2014, recruited by the Philadelphia Sixers. But a foot injury sidelined him for two years, two years raising questions, but above all two precious years working in the shadows and expanding.

Joel Embiid is the first player to win the Kia NBA MVP Award with the 76ers since Allen Iverson in the 2000-01 season.

Complete voting results ⬇️ pic.twitter.com/kko3o8tmxi

— NBA Communications (@NBAPR) May 2, 2023

We know the rest: successful beginnings, a steady progression since then, until reaching the heights this season, becoming the best scorer and locomotive of his team, Joël Embiid strikes the spirits with several stratospheric games with more than 50 points.

Also American and French, the pivot to the three nationalities has still not announced his choice of national selection and is for the moment the happiness of the fans of Philadelphia.

Cameroon's Joel Embiid during a basketball game with his club, the Philadelphia 76ers', against the Atlanta Hawks, in Philadelphia, February 24, 2020. © Matt Slocum / AP

The Cameroonian pivot, native of Douala, beat the Greek Giannis Antetokoumpo and the Serbian Nikola Jokic, winners of the last four editions... Last year's finalist, Embiid, 29, is the second African player in history to receive this individual distinction. He is particularly the pride of a man, Ruben Boumtjé-Boumtjé, who was the first Cameroonian to have played in the NBA: it was in 2001 with Portland. Ruben Boumtjé-Boumtjé, who also played pivot, relishes the announced coronation of his caddie.

Joel Embiid is "the pride of Cameroon, we will always support it," says Ruben Boumtjé-Boumtjé, the first Cameroonian to play in the NBA

Martin Guez

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