Joel Embiid is myth-making in real time and the best may be yet to come | Bryan Armen Graham

Wilt Chamberlain’s achievements have never seemed real, like tall tales that only grow more incredible with time. To take his dazzling campaign of 1961-62, when he reached basketball’s kill screen by scoring 100 points in a single game for the Philadelphia Warriors, averaging 50.4 points and 25.7 rebounds per game over an entire season. When he was later accused of being a selfish player who only cared about scoring, the 7-foot-2 strongman became the only center before or since to lead the NBA in assists. Incredibly, he has never made a mistake during a match. As the durability of sports records and achievements deteriorates, the Wilt conversation drifts beyond Michael Jordan territory into the realm of Don Bradman and Leonidas of Rhodes. For a larger than life figure outside the court whose claims are included abusing a mountain lion in self-defense, coming so close to fight Muhammad Ali at the Astrodome and collecting Genghis Khan songs in the bedroom, it is fitting that his nickname, the Big Dipper, is taken not from a star, but from an entire constellation.

All of this provides an instructive context for the rarefied air Joel Embiid has inhabited in recent months. Last season, the Philadelphia 76ers star center was an undisputed winner of the NBA’s Most Valuable Player award, even as Nikola Jokić’s sensational postseason left a sense of buyer’s remorse. This year, Embiid was even better. Thanks in large part to an improved mid-range jump shot, he is averaging 36.1 points in 34.2 minutes per game. more points per minute than Wilt during his 50-point-per-game season. If he continues like this, Embiid will become only the second player in NBA history after Wilt in ’61-62 to average more points than minutes played over a full season.

It’s a truly historic tear that’s becoming increasingly popular as the season progresses. In his past 16 games, so has Embiid Putting up PlayStation numbers on a nightly basis: Averaging a ridiculous 40.3 points while shooting 57.4% from the field, 41.7% from three-point range and 89.7% from the free throw line. The culmination of that stretch seemed to come last week, when he grabbed this year’s MVP race by the scruff of the neck Jokić to become the boss in their first head-to-head meeting of the season, finishing with 41 points, seven rebounds and 10 assists in a win in Philadelphia.

But that was just a taste of Monday night, when Embiid erupted with 70 points against the San Antonio Spurs to topple Wilt’s 57-year-old scoring record. In a highly anticipated showdown with No. 1 overall draft pick and superstar-in-waiting Victor Wembanyama, who stands 7-foot-1 but is a 209-pound reed thing, Embiid made a mockery of every different combination of defensemen and schemes that San Antonio threw at him. He had scored 24 at the end of the first quarter, 34 by halftime and tied his career high with 59, with an absurd three at the buzzer to end the third. Mase said he did everything with Wemby but gave him a wedgie on the pitch.

The cocktail of power, precision and grace in a 7-foot, 285-pound package is unlike anything we’ve ever seen. Embiid has been able to rush his way to the basket whenever he wants for years, but when he complements that physicality with a dead-eyed pull-up jumper, when he snaps, he’s unguarded. On nights like Monday it almost seems unfair. Operating with mechanical efficiency and a tireless motor, he took 41 shots and made 24, connecting on 21 of his 23 attempts from the line. He grabbed 18 rebounds, dished out five assists and committed just one turnover. It wouldn’t be an exaggeration to call it one of the best games ever played.

Anyone who called for Embiid to be traded after last season’s disastrous playoff loss to the Celtics is probably feeling weird right now. And while it’s true that Embiid’s frequent no-shows in the playoffs are credible things on his permanent record — that it’s the one thing that should get Philadelphia over the hump into the Eastern Conference finals for the second time in four decades – only a real killjoy can think of that now.

Yes, the Sixers have built a reputation as flat bullies with Embiid as their leader, piling up gaudy win totals in the regular season only to struggle in the playoffs when the game slows down and every possession counts. But there’s reason to believe the Sixers can finally break their second-round hoodoo this year and avoid another misty-eyed exit. Tyrese Maxey, their 23-year-old combo guard, has become a bona fide star in his fourth NBA season. The entire group has done well under first-year head coach Nick Nurse, who represents a significant upgrade over postseason millstone Doc Rivers. They’ve won 26 of 32 games when Embiid has played, a better win-loss percentage than any team in the standings today. But even if they don’t do well in the postseason in a few months, Embiid has already written his name in history.

Nowhere is Wilt’s mystique more deeply portrayed than in Philadelphia, where he was born and first rose to national prominence as a multi-sport phenom at Overbrook High School and where basketball is embedded in the cultural DNA. You could see it in the faces of the thousands of fans who lingered in the Wells Fargo Center long after Monday’s final buzzer; they knew they had witnessed a grandeur that doesn’t happen often. And the best may be yet to come.