Kevin Durant praises Joel Embiid ahead of Thursday's Nets vs. 76ers showdown: 'He's really unstoppable'

Joel Embiid is rampaging toward his first MVP award this season, and on Thursday, he'll face off with a former winner in his team's biggest game yet. The Philadelphia 76ers will host the Brooklyn Nets on Thursday in James Harden's first game against his former team, but in a video for Boardroom, Kevin Durant went out of his way to praise Harden's new teammate, Embiid.

"He's really unstoppable," Durant said of the MVP frontrunner. "He said something where he was like I can transform from like Kobe, to Hakeem, to Shaq, to a couple other players and I was like, 'Yo, you're telling the truth.'"

Stylistically, Embiid was absolutely right. Like Hakeem Olajuwon, he is a decorated defensive stopper. He has made three All-Defensive Teams and could make a fourth this season. Like Shaquille O'Neal, he is basically impossible to defend in the post. He is scoring 8.7 points per game in the post. No one else is averaging more than 5.4. Like Kobe Bryant, Embiid can score from anywhere on the floor. He is shooting a respectable 43.5 percent in the mid-range and 35.1 percent from behind the arc. Few centers can match that efficiency on his volume.

Durant is a different sort of player. He can score like Bryant, but he lacks the physical tools needed to play like Olajuwon or O'Neal. That doesn't mean he can't appreciate them, though. As a former MVP, he understands what it means to play at that level. He's been doing it for over a decade. Embiid is there now, and in addition to Thursday's battle, they may see each other once again in the playoffs. If they do, Durant won't be giving Embiid any bulletin board material to work with.

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Klay Thompson to sit out Warriors preseason games in Japan as Kerr says he needs more time to ramp-up

Klay Thompson may have returned healthy to the Golden State Warriors last season, but the scars from his two missed seasons are still quite visible. The Warriors played their first of two preseason games against the Washington Wizards on Friday and will play another on Sunday, but Warriors coach Steve Kerr said that Thompson will not be playing at all during the trip to Japan. "Just feel more comfortable giving him a little more of a ramp up," Kerr said before Friday's victory over Washington. "He's just not quite ready to play at this point just based on where, you know, we're so early in camp. We just want to be safe and make sure he gets a good ramp-up before he plays in games." Typically, so little time to ramp up wouldn't be a problem for a veteran in a preseason context. The games tend to be so low-impact and demand so few minutes out of a team's best players that they can safely jog through them. Stephen Curry and Draymond Green played 1...

Shaquille O'Neal says Dennis Rodman was his worst teammate: 'He was a great player, but he made it hard'

Shaquille O'Neal played for six franchises over a 20-year NBA career. That's a lot of teammates. Speaking on The Big Podcast with Shaq, the four-time champion and Hall of Famer revealed which one of those teammates was the worst. "Worst teammate? Dennis Rodman," O'Neal said. "He was a great player, but he made it hard. Like when you try to corral the guys together and the people above you [are] letting this one guy do whatever he wants. So we had to be there an hour before the game. He'd come in fifteen minutes before the game eating chicken and rice. While the coaches are talking, he would jump in the shower. Cold shower. Come and give you 15-20 rebounds." O'Neal played with some characters in his time. We know about his beef with Kobe Bryant, who we know wasn't always the easiest teammate to get along with, though Shaq has long expressed regret over the way he and Bryant handled their relationship as young superstars, and eventually, he ...

Kevin Durant injury update: Nets rule star out for home-and-home vs. Raptors, hopeful for return later in week

Brooklyn Nets star forward Kevin Durant is expected to return to the floor this upcoming week. Head coach Steve Nash says it just won't be against the Raptors, either Monday or Tuesday night in the team's home-and-home against Toronto. Durant has started doing more on-court work recently as he recovers from the sprained MCL he suffered in his left knee last month, and Nash is optimistic about his prognosis moving forward. The former MVP will not play on Monday night against the Toronto Raptors, however. "I think with Kevin he's been a great healer throughout his career," Nash said Saturday. "So the No. 1 thing is to get him back healthy and feeling secure in his health and his body so he can move and be free. When he's back, obviously he adds a ton to our team on both ends of the floor ... one of the greatest scorers of all time. And we also know he helps us defensively; he gives us more size and length. So he's a big miss for us, and whenever he get...

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