Joel Embiid gives advice to Victor Wembanyama / News - Basketnews.com

Joel Embiid thinks Victor Wembanyama should figure out whether he wants to be a guard or a big and who he wants to become. 76ers star also believes the San Antonio Spurs rookie is forcing many things.

Credit: USA TODAY Sports, AFP-Scanpix Credit USA TODAY Sports, AFP-Scanpix

Philadelphia 76ers star Joel Embiid shared his advice to the 2023 NBA Draft No. 1 pick, Victor Wembanyama.

2-pointers this season

53%28,7Points made:28,7Accuracy:52,7%Place in standings:20Record max:38Record min:19Most made 2FGs:Victor WembanyamaTeamNBAStatisticsSchedule

Embiid faced many setbacks with injuries at the beginning of his career but developed into one of the most dominant players in the league. Embiid believes Wembanyama has to decide who he wants to be.

Not trying to be too critical. Obviously, [he's] extremely talented," Embiid told David Aldridge from The Athletic. "Right now, there's so much hype around him, I think he's trying to live up to the hype. That's what I see. And I watch a lot of games."

"I think, first of all, he has to figure out where he wants to play, whether he wants to be a guard or a big or whatever. It's not necessarily whether he wants to be a guard or a big; it's what he wants to become.

Do you want to become KD, or do you want to become me? Not KD, or like a version of those guys — you want to combine everything. Right now, I just feel like everything kind of feels a little forced in the way that he's playing. Which is not bad. Because the only way to get better is to play through it and learn. That's the only way. You make a lot of mistakes, and you learn," Embiid added.

Talking about his first NBA season, Embiid admitted it was difficult for him.

It was tough. Obviously, those were dark times. I came in, and that was back in the day when I used to be really on Twitter," Embiid said. "Everybody used to talk about I would never play because that was the same injury that a lot of big men had, and never came back from it. And I was also going through my brother dying. Those were dark times."

"At the time, honestly, I didn't care about basketball. I wanted to quit. But I loved the game so much I was like, I always gotta pay attention. One of the things that I've always done, and that I'm still doing, and that's never gonna change, is I just watch a lot of basketball.

I always have a basketball game on. It doesn't matter; any time of the day, any time of the night, if I'm not watching my own games, I'm going to watch any other game. That's how I learn," Embiid continued.

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