Confirming earlier statements made by Sixers center Joel Embiid's agent, head coach Brett Brown said Wednesday that the rookie will get his first taste of NBA basketball in summer league action this year.

"Yes he is," Brown told Anthony Gargano in an appearance Wednesday on 97.5 FM The Fanatic. "We'll do Salt Lake and Las Vegas. We're going through the design of that. Last year we had two teams and what we learned last year is it afforded them the opportunity to see more people. We take a lot of pride in doing summer league right.

"We have guys that are coming back ready to go. We have draft picks that we're looking at. We've got studies that the coaching staff is looking at and then we conclude it with two summer leagues. One in Las Vegas and one in Utah."

The Utah Jazz Summer League in Utah runs from July 6-9 and will feature the Sixers, Boston Celtics, San Antonio Spurs and the Jazz among the six teams participating. Meanwhile, the Las Vegas Summer League starts up July 10-20 with 23 teams taking part in a tournament style league.

For Embiid, the summer league will culminate an offseason of preparation that has included everything from traveling with the Sixers' front office to the NBA Scouting Combine to taking in the atmosphere of an NBA Playoff game.

"I took him to Chicago last week to go sit and watch the Chicago Bulls vs. Cleveland game and to take in the NBA Playoff game action that I wanted him to see, to feel and to see Cleveland close out that series," Brown said of a trip in which the Sixers brought Embiid along and even had him sit in on the interview process with draft prospects at the combine. "To let him sit with us in the interview room and interview peers. To grill them top to bottom on their careers, their character, their paths and questions that we ask. Interview people, trying to assess who they are, sometimes more as a person because you see them play so much.

"To go in and watch the young guys workout on the court. To see him continue to workout and lately to see him bottom line play, you see enough where you step back and see that he's going to be really good. The bottom line is, he could be really, really, really good. It's going to come down to his health."

Embiid sat out all of last season while recovering from foot surgery that caused him to slide to the Sixers' grasp with the third overall pick in last summer's NBA Draft. The 7-foot, 250 pound center posted 11.2 points and 8.1 rebounds per game in his lone collegiate season at Kansas.

The Sixers appear to view Embiid as one of their franchise centerpieces, assuming that he can return to full health and reach his potential.

"I'm excited to deliver him also to the city, Brown said. "I think he's going to be something really unique"

Matt Lombardo may be reached at MDLombardo@yahoo.com. Follow him on Twitter @MattLombardo975. Find NJ.com Philadelphia Sports on Facebook