Joel Embiid - If I can't meet game threshold for MVP, 'so be it' - ESPN

PHILADELPHIA — Reigning league MVP Joel Embiid returned from his latest injury to score 41 points and grab 10 rebounds in leading the Philadelphia 76ers to a 124-115 victory over the Houston Rockets on Monday.

Embiid's 17 straight games with 30 points are a franchise record. He earned his seventh 40-point double-double this season, the most in the NBA. Embiid now has 42 games of at least 40 points and 10 rebounds, the seventh most in NBA history.

His absences, though, have piled up, placing his candidacy for another MVP trophy on the rocks. He can miss only eight more games out of the final 44 before he is no longer eligible for MVP.

«It doesn't matter how many games I play; the goal is to be healthy the rest of the year,» Embiid said Monday.

Embiid's health is of course crucial to a Philadelphia team hopeful of a deep playoff run. Embiid has never had a fully healthy postseason campaign, the key reason the franchise hasn't advanced out of the second round in his tenure.

The new collective bargaining agreement requires players, in most instances, to play in 65 regular-season games to be eligible for awards such as MVP or the All-NBA teams. Embiid, who is playing in his 8th NBA season, has met that threshold only twice — when he played a career-best 68 games in 2021-22 and 66 games last season, when he won his first MVP award.

«I've already done it,» Embiid said. «If I have a chance to get a second one, I'll do it. I'm not going to force myself or push for it. My game is always going to speak for itself. We're winning. That's the main thing. We've got to keep winning and you put in the stats to be in the [MVP] conversation that's great, too. But at the end of the day, if there's something going on, and I can't meet the