Joel Embiid is seven-feet tall, weighs 250 pounds and checks all the boxes for being a prototypical NBA center. Taken with the third overall pick in the 2014 draft by the Philadelphia 76ers, he overcame injuries early in his career and blossomed into a perennial All-Star who average 24.3 points and 11.4 rebounds per game last season.
But three short years before he signed an NBA contract and received life-changing money, he was a 17-year-old back home in Cameroon who was an aspiring … volleyball player?
True story: In 2011, the year he first picked up a basketball, Embiid received an unexpected invite to an NBA Basketball Without Borders camp hosted by Luc Mbah a Moute, one of a handful of NBA players who hail from Cameroon.