By Antonis Stroggylakis/ info@eurohoops.net
Philadelphia 76ers star Joel Embiid said that he nearly thought of quitting basketball back in his early days in Kansas University. The one responsible for almost pushing Embiid towards an early retirement? Maccabi Tel Aviv center Tarik Black.
In a post for the Players’ Tribune called “It’s Story Time”, Embiid recalled a nasty incident from his early days with the Jayhawks involving him and Black. During their first scrimmage, Black apparently dunked on Embiid mean enough, that the latter thought of… checking for flights back home.
Per the Players’ Tribune:
“My very first scrimmage at Kansas, I got dunked on so hard by Tarik Black that I almost quit. Tarik dunked on me so hard that I was looking at plane tickets home. This guy was a senior. He was a grown man. I didn’t know what was going on. He got his own rebound and dunked over me so hard that everything went in slow motion.
He dunked the ball off my head, for real. But I didn’t even tell you the worst part. The worst part was that the entire Kansas women’s hoops team was sitting in the bleachers watching the scrimmage. The whole gym was laughing at me. It was crazy. Seriously, it was like a WORLDSTAR situation.
So I went straight to Bill Self’s office afterward and I said, “I can’t do this. You have to redshirt me. I can’t play with these guys.”