Peaks: Embiid vs AD

[rand]

Who at their peak would you take for a single postseason in today's game given that they are 100% healthy going into the postseason, Joel Embiid or Anthony Davis?

Assume a random cast of teammates. Might be stacked, might have no other star.

[xb3at band1tx]

If you're including RS, Embiid by smidge with how he's mastered that realm and being able to 'Alpha' a team to the playoffs. The hope is does Joel have it together both physically and mentally by the time April come. That hasn't happened (yet).

But strictly post-season? Davis easily, injuries' or not Embiid needs to show some real consistency in the playoffs sooner rather than later. Awesome defender but I'm still on the fence whether his offense can translate well in a deep playoff setting while with Davis he's one of the most malleable players in the game being able to score in different ways without forcing it.

Davis for his playoff career (60 GP) 26pts 12r and 2 blocks per game on 62 TS% and that's with a very below-average 3 pointer. The man is a ridiculous playoff performer and is proven to be one of the best off ball bigs ever.

[SlimShady83]

AD plays both ends of the floor and I'm not real fan

[wafflzgod]

Given 100% health, I think this is comfortably Embiid. While AD is a BITW-caliber defender, Embiid is still a top 10-caliber one IMO, and is just significantly stronger at driving offense due to an enormous gap in self-created scoring and superior passing. AD does have traits that help him scale up and/or fit better with high-end talent -- better screener, roller, rebounder, play finishing, defensive versatility etc. -- but Embiid's significant gap as a creator for himself and others is more important than that to me.

However, I think this is a good debate, and might go to AD, if you actually care about what they accomplished over a single/multi-season stretch, because Embiid's health is part of who he has been and he has never had a healthy or dominant postseason run since becoming a MVP level player.

[JLei]

I'm one of the bigger AD fans here.

I think the answer is Embiid if the caveat is completely healthy and assuming a random assortment of teammates.

Embiid is legitimately an offensive monster on his own. He's obviously the best scoring big man since Shaq and he's a better playmaker than AD and a better shooter.

There's just a floor there with Embiid that's significantly higher than AD. And that's with me saying that AD is probably the best playoff defensive player of the past decade (maybe you could Draymond is the other). Offensively he just doesn't have the same type of impact despite his supreme off ball ability which is valuable with a dominate lead ball handler.

It's hard answer though tbh. Because you are comparing a hypothetical to something you have a decent sample size of. But there's a reason he's been a top 2 MVP candidate for the past 3-4 years something that AD has never quite gotten to (though 2020 bubble AD was arguably a top 2 player in the league behind Lebron and equal with Giannis).