Joel Embiid likely lost a ton of MVP votes, not because of what he has done on the court, but because of the way he likes to eat certain food. The star 7-footer is a rare talent in pro basketball, but that’s not the way he orders his steak.
That’s just one of the details from a new piece in The Athletic about Embiid.
Embiid apparently likes his steak cooked to the point that it is “burnt,” according to his 76ers teammate Tobias Harris.
“He likes his steak burnt, which is like super disrespectful,” Harris told The Athletic. “We were at a very well-known steakhouse. He asks for the steak to be burnt, burnt. And the chef came out and was like he’s not burning the steak, that’s like against his chef code…(Joel) was disappointed and he was like, ‘I don’t want to eat here anymore.’”
Norm Roberts, Joel Embiid’s college coach had osmething to say about his eating habits as well.
“An awful eater. Awful,” he said.
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“We had a lady who would greet us by the bus every time we went on a road trip, and she’d always give brownies to the seniors or whoever played best,” Niko Roberts, a college teammate of Embiid added. “And then the seniors would distribute if they felt like sharing. And JoJo was known for stealing brownies. He’d just be in the back of the bus, stuffing his face, trying to hide as much as he can.”
76ers forward Justin Anderson then chimed in, “Everything had to be extra, extra, extra, extra, extra, extra well done. My man used to love his wings well done. When we’d get on the team plane, he’d try to have the flight attendants put them in this airplane oven, which doesn’t cook, it just warms it up. We’d be on like a five-hour flight and his wings would be in the oven the whole time.”
Sixers guard Tyrese Maxey added to the big man’s story:
“Earlier in the year, my chef made some chicken wings for me to get on the plane with,” said Maxey. “I sit right in front of him and Jo’s like, ‘Tyrese, you selfish.” And I’m like, ‘How am I selfish?’ He’s like, ‘You didn’t bring no wings for me.’ So now every time I get on the plane, I always give him extra wings, something like, I don’t know, 25 or 30. And he always asks for them to be burnt.”
Because of these comments about Embiid, social media wants his name taken out of the running for MVP:
Embiid currently leads the league in scoring with 30.4 points and 11.6 rebounds. It’s going to be hard to look past his off-the-court steak-eating issues, but we should give him another chance.
