Joel Embiid in 2018: “The only thing that kept me going was the way that I was raised by my parents. They always told us to keep working, no matter what. I had this DVD that my coach in Cameroon had mailed to me when I first came to America. It was an hour-long tape of Hakeem Olajuwon and some other legendary big men. I probably watched that DVD every single day for three years. I would study the way Hakeem moved, and I would go out and try to imitate him.⁠ ⁠ I did it in high school, and I did it at Kansas.⁠ ⁠ I was basically just imagining that I was a good basketball player. ⁠ The power of the mind is kind of amazing. I mean, I sucked. But somehow, I convinced myself that I was Hakeem. And I started getting better and better. And then I sort of started killing it.⁠ I pretended my way to the NBA. I seriously got to the league by watching YouTube and living in the gym. There’s no other way to explain it. Remember when KG won the title with the Celtics, and he was acting all crazy, sc...