Newly crowned NBA MVP Joel Embiid hopes to be a role model after overcoming extraordinary odds, the Philadelphia 76ers center said on Wednesday.
The Cameroonian All-Star is only the second African-born player to earn MVP honors, following Nigerian-American Hakeem Olajuwon, who won the award for the 1993-94 season with the Houston Rockets, and said he never predicted a future in the NBA when he began playing.
¡°The probability of someone like me, you know, started playing basketball at 15, to get the chance to be the MVP of the league is, I¡¯d say, negative zero,¡± he said. ¡°We don¡¯t have a lot of opportunities back in Africa in general to get to this point.
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