In a recent turn of events, the Ben Simmons-Philadelphia 76ers stalemate began to spiral as the organization withheld from paying Simmons an $8.25 million advance — 25 percent of his $33 million salary. This is an unusual situation as normally; players wouldn’t begin receiving payments until November. Ultimately, the Sixers are taking a stance that further suggests that Simmons’ days with the organization are over.
On Friday morning, managing partner Joe Harris and the Sixers announced that they will move Simmons’ salary into an escrowed account where money will be deducted for fines, he receives by not showing up for training camp.
Simmons, who has rarely been able to buy a shot from outside of the arc throughout his young career, has made only five shots from three throughout the 275 games he’s played since being drafted first overall in the 2016 NBA Draft.
As the summer flew by, conversations between the two parties were radio silent as Simmons began to distance himself from the organization. The Sixers opened conversations about trading Simmons in mid-July.
In September, Simmons informed the team that he wanted to be traded stating that he had “mentally checked out” of the situation, according to Shams Charania of The Athletic.
As training camp approached, teammates began to reach out to Simmons. Team leaders like Joel Embiid, Tobias Harris and Matisse Thybulle even planned to fly out to his Los Angeles home to convince him to join the team before the 2021-2022 season. Simmons informed them that he did not want to meet with them.
Some of the teams that are most likely to emerge as contenders to acquire Simmons include the Indiana Pacers, Portland Trailblazers and Minnesota Timberwolves, per Brian Windhorst of The Jump. Windhorst believes that the Pacers can put together an offer “that few teams can rival” Indiana has an advantage as they can use their future first round picks along with current players to acquire Simmons.
For a while, Sixers coaches and staff believed that these shooting issues weren’t going to be detrimental. Surrounding him with shooters like Seth Curry & Danny Green seemed to be effective, at least for the time being. Philadelphia would go on to eventually hire an array of shooting coaches to help Simmons develop a smoother shooting form. When asked about the former McDonald’s All American’s shooting woes in a 2020 interview, Coach Doc Rivers took a selfless approach stating, “Someone taught me this long ago — you win the game. You keep winning games, and you don’t worry about who scores. Ben missed some great shots tonight. If he had converted two or three of the layups that he had and got to the foul line a little bit more, he would have been fine. We played good offense tonight. We just couldn’t make shots, literally by our shooters.”
At this point, there was no immediate pressure on Rivers due to Simmons already not emerging as a strong shooting option for Philadelphia beforehand. However, this worsened as the Sixers entered the playoffs & Simmon’s struggles continued.
During the 2021 playoffs, the Australian guard averaged 11.9 points, 7.9 rebounds and 8.8 assists per game.
Simmon’s costly decision to pass up a wide-open dunk in the final minutes of a Game 7 against the Atlanta Hawks sent Sixers fans over the edge. The Hawks would go on to win the game 109-106.
After the game, Simmons, who shot 4-14 from the free throw line, was forced to rediscuss his shooting. “Definitely I think its mental”, said the 3x all-star per Sixers insider Kevin Neubeck. This doesn’t seem too farfetched as Simmons is a 59.7 percent career free throw shooter. His shooting average at the line plummeted to 32.8 percent during his playoff drought.
Despite this, Doc Rivers still believes that the Sixers can win a championship with Ben Simmons. He renounces the narrative that Ben Simmons will never be an elite player because he cannot shoot. After Game 4, Rivers spoke to the press stating that, “Ben is not a 40-point guy, it’s not what he does, he does other things for your team. And I just don’t understand why that’s not sinking in, in our city. Everybody on the team doesn’t have to be a scorer to help the team. Ben scores, but Ben creates scoring for us, that’s what he does.”
Simmons Situation Causing a Rift Between Teammates?
Relationships between athletes and organizations turning sour over holdouts aren’t something we haven’t seen before. In 2018, Pittsburgh Steelers offered star running back, Le’Veon Bell, a franchise tag worth up to $14.5 million. Bell, who felt snubbed as he was arguably the best at his position, turned down the offer and opted to sit out the entire season. This is a route that Ben Simmons could take if he wanted to, but it would cost him a lot more than what it cost Bell.
After a report by The Athletic revealed that Simmons believes his partnership with Joel Embiid has “run its course” it is very unlikely that Simmons returns to the team before the season begins. Embiid responded, stating that the entire situation is “borderline kind of disrespectful” as the organization had made Simmons a priority in the past. Decisions like trading Jimmy Butler and Al Harrington were made to prioritize Simmons being the primary ball handler. While Embiid believes that the Sixers are a better team with Simmons, he has reiterated that they need to “focus on the team at hand”
The Sixers aren’t just some team that will be lucky to make it to the playoffs this season. This is a team that is built to compete to win a championship. Last year, in addition to Simmons & Embiid both being selected as all-stars, Joel Embiid dominated the NBA — looking virtually unguardable. Putting up numbers reminiscent of a prime Shaquille O’Neal, who averaged 29.7 points, 13.6 rebounds & 3 blocks per game while Embiid posted 29.6 points, 10.8 rebounds & 1.2 blocks per game. While the latter provided his team with the ability to create mismatches in a way that O’Neal couldn’t: Embiid shot 40% from outside the arc proving to be a problem for strong post defenders who aren’t comfortable guarding players at the three-point line.
Mismatches like these opened lanes in the paint and created shots for guys like Tobias Harris, the team’s second leading scorer (19.5 ppg) and Simmons (14.3 ppg). Unfortunately for Philadelphia Sixers fans, this took a huge toll on the MVP runner up as he missed 21 regular season games & suffered a small meniscus tear in Game 4 of the opening round against the Washington Wizards.
Relationships between athletes and organizations turning sour over holdouts aren’t something we haven’t seen before. In 2018, Pittsburgh Steelers offered star running back, Le’Veon Bell, a franchise tag worth up to $14.5 million. Bell, who felt snubbed as he was arguably the best at his position, turned down the offer and opted to sit out the entire season. This is a route that Ben Simmons could take if he wanted to, but it would cost him a lot more than what it cost Bell.
Simmons has four years and $147 million left on his max contract. This includes his $33 million salary for the 2021-22 season. If the Sixers suspend him, Simmons will lose $227,000 for each exhibition and regular-season game missed up to the 20th game of the season. For games 21 through 82, that figure rises to $300,000.
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