The Joel Embiid All-Star campaign worked… sort of

What can you do, really? If the votes are there, the votes are there. If they’re not, they’re not. Joel Embiid campaigned his heart out. Some of America fell in love. Some of that some fell a little harder, myself included. Alas, Joel Embiid as an All-Star starter was not to be.

He is still to be celebrated though. From fake retweeting Trump to attempting to anger Hassan Whiteside by voting for him, Embiid has been the best part of the last few weeks for all who had a column set up in Tweetdeck for any mention of the #NBAVote hashtag. I didn’t, but I wish I had.

Even without the starter nod, Joel was sated. It’s a monumental task to go from potential huge bust to potential All-Star starter in the course of a few months, and if it were up to the fans, he was there:

I’m crying grenadine. It’s grenadine of joy though. The Process was right to trust the fans. If this had been under last year’s rules, he would have made it. Unfortunately, it’s this year. The media and players decided to do the decidedly un-awesome thing.

For information on the voting by all three parties, continue scrolling down through the article in the manner you’re doing now.

A little further.

There you go.

So what this tells you is that the rest of the NBA did not think much of Embiid’s campaign. Or maybe his play. Or maybe they knew who he was going to try and take on that ballyhooed date, and they just got mega jealous. An under-reported aspect of NBA culture is just how much rookies’ social lives are a “it takes a village” mentality. Maybe they’re just looking out. Hard to say.

Next: Finding joy in mini victories for the Philadelphia 76ers

That’s not the end of the Joel story, though. He still has a chance to make the game as a reserve. We can’t help, but we can hope.