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Joel Embiid reacts to NBA MVP award

Philadelphia 76ers' Joel Embiid   -  
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Hakim Wright Sr./Copyright 2022 The AP. All rights reserved.

Joël Embid

Basketball star Joel Embiid has reacted one day after being awarded the 2022-23 NBA Most Valuable Player (MVP, Ed.) award.

"It's amazing. Feels good, obviously. Something that I dreamed of and I've always wanted - especially when I started playing basketball, that was obviously the goal and obviously there's other goals and stuff but this is just one step to, you know, to whatever I want to accomplish, which is to win championships and we're right there so it felt pretty good", admitted the basketball star. 

A native of Yaoundé in Cameroon, Joel Embiid didn’t start playing basketball until he was 15 years old.

"I've always felt like I was a role model, especially to my Cameroonian people and my African people and I feel like just looking at my story, that's, they can look at it and be like, 'Wow, you did it.' Probably the probability of someone like me, starting playing basketball at 15, to get the chance to be the MVP of the league is, I'd say, probably negative zero. Without opportunities that - we don't have a lot of opportunities back in Africa, in general, to get to this point but improbable doesn't mean impossible", said Joel Embiid. 

The oft-injured Embiid led the NBA in scoring for the second straight season, playing in 66 games, the second-most in his career. 

He missed the last game of Philadelphia's first-round sweep of the Brooklyn Nets and the first game of the second round, when the Sixers beat Boston to steal the home-court advantage in the series.