By Josh Liddick, Sports Talk Philly editor 
The path to superstardom is sometimes easier than most people are led to believe.
For Joel Embiid, he believes that the player he is right now heading into his third full NBA season is good enough to warrant thoughts of being an elite talent.
And who's going to argue with him? The Joel Embiid we see playing for the Philadelphia 76ers in the fall and winter is the player we hope he remains for the rest of his career. Injuries are always a question mark for Embiid, but after playing the majority of games last season, we saw a side of Joel Embiid we never saw before.
We saw dominance on a whole new level. Joel Embiid is in a position this year to dominate harder than he did last season. He's now in a position to be one of the NBA's best players next season. With a core of Ben Simmons and a surging Markelle Fultz around him, anything is completely possible.
Just look at Embiid, who told the media on Wednesday, that he believes he's better than a majority of the players the Sixers failed to pursue during their "star-hunt."
The Sixers struck out on all three possible acquisitions in LeBron James, Paul George, and Kawhi Leonard, but that doesn't stop Embiid from desiring to be the player everyone expects him to be. He told Sarah Todd of Philly.com that much in an interview.
“When my season ended, there was a lot of talk about adding guys. I literally did not really care because I want to get better,” Embiid said during a conference call Wednesday from Johannesburg, South Africa. “I want to be better than those guys that were mentioned, if I’m not already better than them.”
“I want to win the MVP. I feel like at the end of the day it might be an individual award, but when I play better, the team also does,” Embiid said. “I feel like if I’m an MVP candidate or if I win the MVP, that means we are on another level.”
The road to getting to where he needs to go is definitely tough for Embiid, but he's exuding confidence on a level we've never seen before. He wants to be the best, there's no denying it.
Embiid finished as runner-up for Defensive Player of the Year last season and wound up on Second-Team All-Defense. He might be one of the most elite defenders in the NBA, but obviously there's more to the goal for the big man. He wants to be the best.
The greatest part about Embiid's potential is his age. He's 24-years-old and he has his entire career ahead of him. It seems like Embiid has been a part of the Philadelphia tradition forever since being drafted third overall in 2014, but he's still young enough to go the extra mile and be the player he wants to be.
Last season was just a sneak preview of the player Embiid wants to be in the NBA, he's only going to get better and more dominant as the years go by. And to think that he's already saying that he thinks he can be better than LeBron James, just shows how much he wants this. Just how much Embiid wants to get to the next level.
He's almost there, we just need to trust it.
