He's a professional athlete. Like, being an athlete is literally what he does for a living. He should be in fantastic shape.
Do max players get a share of the money to get teams to the salary minimum? Would seem odd to do it - otherwise teams could theoretically get players more than the max that way.
I'll vote no 2/24.
One certainly could work out hard enough to be in game shape. He would even have an advantage because in a controlled environment he is better able to reduce the risk of injury. He either didn’t really expect to get traded or didn’t care enough to be ready to go.
basically every athlete in every sport talks about how it's almost impossible to get in "game shape" working out.
Unquestionably. The Simmons/Harden swap is even to me and then the Nets get Curry too? And picks to move for more veteran role players? I mean the Sixers painted themselves in a corner and did what they had to do to get a year and a half of Harden which is a fine get but the Nets made out like bandits here imo. A win-win as each side maximized their return but Philly pretty much stacked the deck against themselves by loading up their key rival.
I’m glad you prefaced that bc under virtually no scenario can Simmons be ready to go full NBA game speed after not playing for 9-10 months. It would have been much easier staying in game shape over the summer working out with NBA players but this time of year you don’t have NBA, college or even overseas players to run with so he’s going to be far behind where he’d be at the start of training game. For these reasons I think two weeks is a reasonable amount of time just being around the speed of the game again.
I'm more cynical - I think his "mental health" will be fine now that he got his way
Well, if his mental health was that good he wouldn't have ended up in this position where he felt the need to get his way to begin with.
I also don’t think there is an appetite for Ben’s first games back to be without either Durant or Irving. They’ll probably wait for both to be available.
I think the trade is reasonable from both sides, but I think people are forgetting that Simmons was never playing for the Sixers in the calculus. Even if Simmons/Harden is even (which I don't think it is), it's irrelevant. Simmons didn't play. Harden was pouting but if he wasn't traded I dont think he was sitting out the rest of the season.
both teams won yesterday, the Nets won the future, the rest of the EC teams lost. Milwaukee's life just got a lot harder with Simmons guarding Giannis
For those you didn’t see it yet:
We all know, including Lebron himself, The Decision was a disaster. That out of the way, I am consistently struck by how thoughtful and personable Lebron is. He's just really sophisticated in how he presents himself, what issues he weighs in on, etc. Considering he has been a pro athlete since the age of 18 and esesntially a coddled star since about age 14 it is just impressive how he's managed through it all; would be so easy to have ended up differently. It speaks really well of him, his family, and whoever has helped him get there.
100% agree and it’s in pretty sharp contrast to KD (especially last night).
God, I wish KD had come back with something like “and you haven’t made enough”
Yeah, I hope it doesn't sound patronizing to say this. But so many people who are famous at a very young age end up pretty screwed up people. You hear about it with the tennis prodigies a lot. Considering that Lebron was on TV from 10th grade or so, he seems pretty damn grounded and well-rounded.
