By Mike Grimm
After Joel Embiid had put up 52 points against the Boston Celtics Tuesday night, former Sixers and Miami Heat star Jimmy Butler said:
“Joel’s the MVP,” Butler said, per Vincent Goodwill of Yahoo Sports.
“He should’ve been MVP last year too.”
Embiid finished second in MVP voting last season, falling behind only Nikola Jokic, which happened to be the second consecutive year Embiid had fallen behind Jokic for the league’s Most Valuable Player award.
Butler played with Embiid on the Sixers during the 2018-19 season before leaving for the Heat the following offseason. Though the two were only teammates for partially one season, Embiid also thinks highly of Butler, praising him on May 12, the day the Heat eliminated the Sixers from the 2022 NBA Playoffs to the point where he questioned why the Sixers let him go.
“I’m happy for him,” Embiid told reporters. “I won’t sit here and say I didn’t wish he was my teammate. I still don’t know how we let him go. I wish I could’ve gone to battle with him still, but it is what it is. Just gotta keep building and keep tryna reach that goal.”
The two former teammates will square off on tonight at the Wells.
