January 03, 2017
The ability to draw fouls is a skill, and it’s one that Joel Embiid is already elite at 22 games into his NBA career. “The Process” is tops in the NBA among players that see the floor even semi-regularly (200 minutes or more) with 9.6 personal fouls drawn per 36 minutes, according to NBA.com.
And it’s probably worth pointing out, while my entire timeline is being spammed with “#NBAVote Joel Embiid” tweets, that the next five players on the list were all in the all-star game a season ago:
| Player | Fouls drawn (per-36) |
| Joel Embiid | 9.6 |
| DeMarcus Cousins | 9.0 |
| Anthony Davis | 7.4 |
| Russell Westbrook | 7.3 |
| Isaiah Thomas | 7.2 |
| Jimmy Butler | 6.5 |
What is especially intriguing about Embiid’s ability to draw fouls is that he does it with both size and skill. A few months ago, the 22-year-old was described as a yearling by Brett Brown and that comparison makes sense when you watch him try to figure out the NBA on a game-by-game basis. Embiid falls down a lot (too much, even) and commits plenty of fouls himself (5.1 per-36), but on the positive side, he uses that 7’2” frame of his to create contact.
Like, a lot of it. Embiid seems to fully grasp that he’s not much fun to handle when playing with a physical mindset, which is half the battle.
“He has a mentality and likes contact, he invites contact,” Brown said. “You don’t find people that go flying into audiences as much as he does without an admission that he’s not afraid of the physical side of anything. And so now when he gets the ball at the block, go back and watch that play when [Marquess] Chriss was on him, one of the first plays at Phoenix, where he’s opening him up and dunked on him.”
The exciting thing about Embiid (and a scary one for opposing coaches) is that, as a rookie, he can already beat you with his mind. This can happen in a bunch of ways, but today, we’re primarily talking about “the rip through move."
Here’s how it works: Whenever a defender has their arms outstretched around Embiid’s chest (or “shot pocket”), the big guy will swing his arms from side to side, making contact with the defender’s arms before going into his shooting motion, earning a foul. Here is a small highlight reel of Embiid’s rip through move from early in the season:
As it turns out, those two years sitting out didn’t completely go to waste. Embiid picked the move up watching NBA games.
“I never did it in college,” Embiid said. “I just picked up watching K.D. or James Harden, they always do it. So anytime a defender is on me and got his arm down, that’s an easy foul. And if I want to get somebody in foul trouble, or if I want to foul someone out, or if we’re in the bonus, that’s something I can use.”
A few years ago, Kevin Durant became so good at the move that the NBA changed the rule to make it a non-shooting foul. Even so, it is an excellent way to rack up fouls for your opponent and get to the line when they’re in the penalty.
"So anytime a defender is on me and got his arm down, that’s an easy foul. And if I want to get somebody in foul trouble, or if I want to foul someone out, or if we’re in the bonus, that’s something I can use.”
And, if we’re being honest, it’s kind of B.S. This isn’t a basketball move by any stretch of the imagination, but hey, everyone else is doing it.
“We’ve all seen how he studies the game and he’s learned how to like bait referees, and I think it’s one of the craziest NBA rules that’s even a foul,” Brown said. “But it is, and so everybody in the league does it and he’s learned how to use it.
“Duncan did it years ago and Kobe did it. Everybody learns from each other, and now he’s learned how to do that.”
Moving forward, the rip through move should pay off for Embiid as defenders take note of how successful he has been. Check out Alex Len’s arms here after falling victim to the rip through earlier in the game. Embiid can shoot that soft face-up jumper whenever he wants with this type of passive defense.
“Now I feel like guys that are guarding me, when they watch it on tape, they know that I always get that [foul] a lot,” Embiid said. “Now when they guard me, they want to put their hands up and kind of give me space. That’s easy for a face-up jump shot or jab step jump shot.”
Embiid will continue to have space on his face-up jumpers, and his ability to get to the foul line in part allows him to remain an efficient scorer while shooting only 46 percent from the field (something which should improve over time, if he stays healthy). Trust the process, indeed.
Follow Rich on Twitter: @rich_hofmann
