Here's what Joel Embiid, standout Kansas big man and No. 3 overall pick of the Philadelphia 76ers in the 2014 NBA draft, looks like today:

Joel Embiid does not say cheese. (Jennifer Pottheiser/NBAE/Getty Images) More

And here, via Embiid's increasingly indispensable Twitter account, is what the Cameroonian prospect looked like way back in the long, long ago of 2011:

TB to when I started playing basketball 3 years ago and right before I came to the US, I WAS SO SKINNY #chickenwings pic.twitter.com/qW7zTn7yzQ — Joel-Hans Embiid (@JoelEmbiid) August 5, 2014

What a difference three years (and, evidently, some chicken wings) can make, huh?

Anything is possible y’all... There is hope #EMB11DsADVICE — Joel-Hans Embiid (@JoelEmbiid) August 5, 2014

There is, of course, perhaps a greater degree of hope for those blessed with a 7-footer's frame and the sort of innate athleticism that would've made Embiid a terror on the volleyball court had he stuck with that game (which his father preferred, according to Grantland's Jordan Conn) and never been introduced to hoops. But genetics and luck alone don't determine an athlete's fate, obviously, and as Conn wrote in his piece on the 20-year-old center's come-up in Cameroon, Embiid put in the work:

[When Embiid first began playing,] “he thought he was Kevin Durant,” says Moudio. Embiid had never been taught to shoot, but that didn’t stop him from launching (and missing) 3s. He had never learned to dribble, but from the moment he picked up a ball he was trying to cross up defenders at every opportunity. And when those crossovers led to Embiid chasing the ball into the street, as they often did, he would just get back on the court and try the same move — with the same disastrous results — all over again. [...] Within weeks he was wrestling away most every rebound and lording over the paint, and now, if you look at the basket on the near side of this court, you can still see players shooting on a bent, nearly unhinged rim. That was Embiid’s doing. He dunked too hard.

Then came the video. It’s the most important chapter in the fast-growing body of Embiid lore — the tape of Nigerian center Hakeem Olajuwon that changed the way Embiid saw the game. In actuality, the tape included more than just Olajuwon. It was a supercut of 1990s centers, also featuring David Robinson and Patrick Ewing. Moudio had received it from a friend. He had never instructed players to watch tape before, but Embiid was growing desperate for any piece of information he could find on his new sport. “Here,” Moudio told him, “you might like this.“ [...]

[...] after one night with the tape, Embiid didn’t want to be a swingman anymore. “I want to be Olajuwon,” he told Moudio. From then on, every day was built around reaching that goal. He’d mimic Olajuwon’s Dream Shake, finding that even if he couldn’t put the ball in the basket, he could still move with a fluidity and grace that approximated Olajuwon’s moves. He’d strap on a weight vest and stand near the basket while Moudio lofted ball after ball to the sky, jumping to catch each one at its apex. Sometimes, he’d cry from the pain.

Before long, though, Embiid was the one inflicting pain in the paint rather than suffering from it, filling out into a 250-pound pivot who can bang near the bucket while still retaining the quickness, agility and capacity to translate instruction into production that made him such a tantalizing prospect in Lawrence.