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Pain builds the character.
That's roughly what Brett Brown had to say about Joel Embiid after Philadelphia's deadly loss to the Raptors in Game 7 in Toronto on Sunday night.
Embiid was filmed returning to the locker room, tears running down her face after Kawhi Leonard's last launch on Embiid, which bounced along the net and ended up spilling the Sixers' season.
"It will be a memory of life," said Brown. "As painful as it may seem now, it will help him, it will help him shape his career, and it will help to further define what this period of the year represents." It's hard, it's hard to be the last man standing in. Seeing it has the emotion it has, and it's one of the many in this locker room, it's painful for everyone, but with Joel, he will look at himself in the rearview mirror and remember this, he will stand out better, and smarter, and stronger, and more aware of what it takes to play longer than we could play. "
Brown's words may seem hollow after such an overwhelming defeat, but they are far from being clichés. Players – and teams, from elsewhere – in the NBA are rarely successful in the playoffs without first tasting defeat, often several times. It took nearly a decade for Michael Jordan to win his first title. Even with LeBron James, Kevin Durant. The Raptors team that has just eliminated the Sixers has participated in the playoffs for six consecutive seasons and has not yet reached the final. These things take time.
Embiid and the Sixers will undoubtedly be back in the post-season in the near future, and when they will, they will have an experience bank to use because they will be able to apply the lessons learned from this series.
Jimmy Butler praised Embiid, Simmons
Six Six striker Jimmy Butler praised his two young All-Star teammates after the seventh game on Sunday.
"With these two young guys, they have so much potential to be great," Butler said. "And the best thing about them is that they want their teammates to be as good as they are, they work constantly, they are constantly studying how they could be better, how they could help other guys be better."
"That's the kind of cornerstone you want in an organization, they compete, they hate to lose, and they report it every day, and I only have good things to say about each one of them. Obviously, I know they will keep getting better, they will go into history, and they will do special things in this league. "
It's possible that Butler played his last match alongside Embiid and Simmons (and it's kind of like that sounding like he was doing everything possible to rack up the compliments) then that he is ready for an unrestricted free placement this summer. But this is a topic that does not interest him at the moment.
"I'm not worried yet," Butler said of his NBA future. "We just lost, I do not want to talk about anything except basketball."
Butler – and the Sixers – may, for the moment, delay questions about their nested future. But soon, it will be time for answers.
Follow Michael Kaskey-Blomain on Twitter @therealmikekb.
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