Joel Embiid, the Philadelphia center named Sports Illustrated's Rising Star of the Year for 2017, is also a known social media troll to players and teams alike. He was at it again Wednesday night.

Not quite 24 hours after the 76ers defeated the Timberwolves in overtime, Embiid posted to his social media accounts a photo of him "Euro stepping our way through Minnesota and we ended up raising the cat last night #TheProcess."

The cat in this case was actually KAT — as in Karl-Anthony Towns — who had a response which, of course, caused Embiid to fire back a retort.

Wrote Towns: "That caption was as trash as your picture quality."

Embiid replied: "Better quality than your defense."

The two young NBA big men have verbally sparred before, and it's fun to imagine these two doing battle on and off the court for years to come.

BRIAN STENSAAS