Some replied to Wojo on Twitter with this. God I love the internet sometimes.
View: https://twitter.com/_scottjohnson/status/1451261377797054464?s=12
Ben Simmons wants out of Philadelphia
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View: https://twitter.com/_scottjohnson/status/1451261377797054464?s=12
The biggest problem with the Port Cellar is too many regulars denigrate other posters instead of articulating their own viewpoints.
Edit: This comes across as singling out Kliq, which was not my intent. We have a problem in this forum with attacking other posters instead of focusing on their posts. I could have picked on a dozen other posts in the last 5 pages of this thread to make the same point.
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If the Blazers are willing to do McCollum for Simmons straight up the Sixers should jump all over that. I get it, Simmons is theoretically a better player, but he’s damaged goods at this point, and McCollum is a better roster fit even apart from locker-room chemistry considerations.
Eagles center Jason Kelce with a solid take on Simmons: “Just play better.”
https://www.espn.com/nfl/story/_/id/32446178/jason-kelce-ben-simmons-saga-just-play-better-philadelphia-love-you
https://www.espn.com/nfl/story/_/id/32446178/jason-kelce-ben-simmons-saga-just-play-better-philadelphia-love-you
Eagles tackle Lane Johnson left the team last month, missed three games, revealed he was battling depression and thanked the team for supporting him. Guard Brandon Brooks missed games for nervous exhaustion in recent years. He was throwing up before games. Bill Russell threw up often before games. Has Simmons shown any serious mental issues during his career in Philly?
Is this a serious question? The entire thread is about how he's become terrified to shoot the basketball when his job is to play basketball
I don't mean that flippantly - to me he clearly has a serious mental issue to work through, and the 76ers are absolutely doing everything they can to not help and/or make it worse. Whether we define 'can't perform basketball tasks' as 'serious' is a debate that's above my armchair level of psychology, but it's pretty clear he's got some mental issues to deal with
I mean - as others have said, it's not like (up until this year) he's taking plays off, jogging back on defense, etc etc - it's much more like the yips than an effort thing, and 'we'll just yell at him until it gets fixed' doesn't usually solve those either
Eagles fan here
Brooks has also, for years, openly talked about the fact that he has an anxiety disorder. I remember during the Amazon 'all or nothing' he missed a game because the anxiety of his new contract was weighing down on him.
Fans and teammates have been overwhelmingly supportive of him. And the Eagles kept Lane's battles private until he was ready to address them.
Who knows, but then again his team has said he wasn't mentally ready since before he showed up, Shams tweeted it several days ago. I would not be at all surprised if Simmons' decision not to come back is at least partially a mental health and comfort one, and was made soon after the season. His team's language all along has been about his comfort there.
I will say, Morey leaking that they think he's faking to Spike Eskin instead of someone real (probably because even Woj has standards) tells me he's just as much of a scummy asshole as people make him out to be.
Also... the NBA is all about mental health until it involves not playing for real, then it's "you have a contract", just ask Larry Sanders, or Royce White, or shit... Delonte West. If you're a star who talks about mental health they applaud you and re-tweet it. Miss more than 3 games... "go fuck yourself, you're soft"
Good lucking proving it though. Good luck fining and suspending him for it.
Him having actual mental problems also lines up with the current situation fwiw.
This is especially true since they already fined him for "disengagement." What is that a sign of again?
It was to his father, Howard. Your point still stands, though.
Also, Howard Eskin is not a fan of Ben Simmons. At all.
https://www.crossingbroad.com/2021/05/heres-howard-eskin-at-eagles-practice-totally-trashing-ben-simmons.html
The confidence/perfectionism issues seem real. The Sixers reportedly engaged shooting coaches and sports psychologists to work with him, whose services he eventually stopped using.
However, (if it happened) Simmons stating that he has a mental health issue that prevents him from performing his job at all is a horse of an entirely different color. Frankly, I would be surprised if he went that far. Going down that road opens up a can of worms for Simmons' camp. I would put my money on more amorphous statements about his headspace, not in the right frame of mind etc. The thing is you can only play that hand for so long. Eventually, back tightness, hamstring tightness, head space etc. will not cut it.
View: https://twitter.com/DerekBodnerNBA/status/1451288448875343872
Ah the old "we can't waste Embiid's prime with just good NBA starters, we'd rather waste his prime with nobody at all"
Ah the old "we can't waste Embiid's prime with just good NBA starters, we'd rather waste his prime with nobody at all"
Let’s not dismiss the possibility that Ben would take a year off to reassess his life. Just step away. How many elite athletes have walked away in the prime of their careers? Barry Sanders did it for reasons he couldn’t even describe. Ben should have some money in the bank. Although his new $14.5M home in SoCal probably has a hefty mortgage. He is currently selling his two homes in the Philly region.
Sit out the season, use mental exhaustion as an excuse, sue for his money with the PA backing him up. Not a good ending for hoop fans. But maybe the best thing for Ben at this point in his life.
Sit out the season, use mental exhaustion as an excuse, sue for his money with the PA backing him up. Not a good ending for hoop fans. But maybe the best thing for Ben at this point in his life.
Morey is really bad at large parts of his job and always has been.
Edit- he's basically Sam Hinke if Sam Hinke thought he was good with people and clever
I know it’s been addressed by another poster but the very topic of Simmons playoff series performance has been tied to mental health. The Sixers literally included the phrase “not mentally ready” in their statement on him not playing in a preseason game. So now the team is going to battle the NBAPA with the position of, “We know he wasn’t mentally prepared one day last week per our statement but now that he agrees with our prognosis we don’t agree with our own prognosis anymore so we’re fining him every game missed.”
This drama is better than “The Process.”
To me this is a great example of the danger of having team-building be via the draft (and trades) rather than free agency - he can do this because he doesn't actually have to ever convince a top player to sign with the 76ers in a situation where they have a choice.
Because I agree with you - why would a top player ever sign there if the attitude is 'I don't care if it takes 4 years of handcuffing our team, we need to get *value* for our player'
Fittingly enough, Eric Lindros did. At age 27, he spent a year recovering from the Scott Stevens hit and vowing he would never play for the Flyers again. This is after a year of the Flyers nearly putting him on a plane with a collapsed lung and Lindros/ his family accusing the Flyers of misdiagnosing a separate concussion that he sustained 2 months earlier.
Bob Clarke being a fucking caveman about head injuries really made everything that much worse.
This may be the one saga in Philly sports history with more drama than Ben Simmons.
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Good recall. Lindros was one of the pioneers in concussion awareness for athletes in contact sports. I wonder how he is doing now. It’s amazing how long ESPN and fans in general celebrated big hits with countless replays while not assessing the damage to the athlete who got whacked. Even before ESPN existed, NFL Films created that attitude with its closeup action shots. And let’s not forget Chuck Bednarik’s hit on Frank Gifford! Or Tatum on Stingley and a couple hundred more cheap shots he executed.
As for Simmons, if he gets his money back because of emotional distress, we could have some retroactive lawsuits filed on behalf of Bill Buckner and every other athlete who screwed up in the playoffs.
Yup. I had a good college friend and roommate have a mental breakdown and eventually commit suicide. It was partly financial stress, but that was also exacerbated by immense stress of being behind at work and feeling like he was beyond the event horizon of a black hole. Now, much like Ben Simmons, that work stress was his fault to some unknown degree, due to him not performing and/or asking for help early enough. But that fact didn't make his mental issues any less real.
I'm not saying Ben is about to commit suicide, but I imagine the situation is immensely stressful for him. On top of his very public poor job performance, he had his boss and most respected colleague get on a megaphone and tell the world that he sucks and the team doesn't want him and everything was his fault. Simmons then asked HR to allow him to seek employment elsewhere, giving them plenty of notice, and they didn't comply.
When I watched the videos of Ben practicing, I wasn't focused on the phone in his pocket. I was struck my how uncomfortable he looked. He totally didn't want to be in that environment.
He may be faking this, but it's entirely plausible that it's real and he's finally coming to terms with it.
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Well, his teammates had offered to fly out to LA in the summer and talk to him about rejoining the team. Ben told them not to come. That’s when Embiid gave up on Ben for good, right around the time Ben’s camp leaked news that he and Embiid were not a “good fit” on the court.
So as much as we want to feel compassion for Ben, let’s not paint him as a victim here. As Jason Kelce said, “do the work. Play better.”
What would Bill Belichick do with Ben Simmons?
So obviously it was already too late at that point, right? Some things just aren't fixable. Also, you're talking about events which happened once it was clear that Morey wasn't going to trade him before the season. Yeah, a lot of people started changing their tunes once they knew Ben was destined to be part of the team. I don't know how much of it was genuine but I know that at least some of it was definitely not.
If he really does have a mental issue, then this comment is slightly ignorant. And for the hundredth time in this thread, no one is saying he's completely blameless. There's plenty of fault to go around.
Great question. I'm 99% sure that Bill would have done the fucking smart thing and accepted the best trade possible - for the benefit of both the team and the player. There would have been zero distraction for the team. But the story may have had a completely different trajectory on the Patriots because I cannot imagine Belichick throwing any player under the bus. I couldn't imagine any coach doing so for that matter...until now.
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Whatever the treatment protocol is for an athlete struggling with mental health issues, I hope Ben takes advantage of it and gets back on the court as soon as possible.
I'm not a Pats fan but isn't BB infamous for giving away very little at pressers?
I can't imagine a well-run organization would get itself in this situation.
It's pretty uncanny on how many bad decisions the 76ers have made over the last decade. All the GMs/Coaches fromThe Collar, Brand, Brett Brown, Doc, to now Morey all look pretty dense. At some point, you have to look at the ownership and say they are the only constant here.
maybe high pressure/sports-crazed cities are not the right situation? Philly, Boston, NY should probably stay away.
Sacramento would probably be a better situation for Simmons to reappear on the court
Well, now it's really getting messy. Fun!
Maybe, but what specifically would you do differently? I get the argument to take whatever was on the table this summer, but I doubt it was enough to keep Philly as a contender. We’ll see where things land but I am not yet seeing clarity that Morey messed this up if the goal is to win anything….which always required luck and a good return for Simmons
Can’t disagree on the organizational chaos, from tanking three seasons, to the Colangelo embarrassment, drafting Fultz after getting played by Ainge, drafting Okafor at No. 3, and asking fans to be patient. They were lucky Embiid got hurt in college and fell to them at No. 3. Otherwise, this is not even a playoff franchise. But I want to emphasize, Philly loves its hoops teams and the 76ers are always in the conversation, in good times and bad. The fans will back this team even more now that Ben has walked away.
Morey is a fucking moron IMO. That quote above shows it.
The idea that he is going to strong arm Simmons into playing for the Sixers is so out of touch with reality I don’t know what to think. The sooner he accepts the fact that Simmons is not going to play for them and his leaguewide value is not high, the better for the Sixers. The idea that he is going to keep the Sixers in limbo for another day - let alone 4 years is crazy
So I guess as a Celtics fan … “please proceed” Mr Morey
The idea that he is going to strong arm Simmons into playing for the Sixers is so out of touch with reality I don’t know what to think. The sooner he accepts the fact that Simmons is not going to play for them and his leaguewide value is not high, the better for the Sixers. The idea that he is going to keep the Sixers in limbo for another day - let alone 4 years is crazy
So I guess as a Celtics fan … “please proceed” Mr Morey
the Philly fans/media are steadfast and intense (same w/Boston). As we've seen numerous times with the Sox you need a certain type of player to thrive in this environment
Because I can't help myself terry, additional recent 76er gaffs: Butler exit, Zhaire for Bridges, Tobias Harris trade/contract, Horford signing/use, not grabbing an available Harden, and Jrue Holiday for #6 (Nerlens Noel). If I've missed any the peanut gallery is free to chime in.
(also, Danny/Boston are not exempt from some recent questionable moves)
I was watching Tatum shoot 7-for-30 last night with several shots two feet off line and wondered how a great player could shoot so poorly. The game can be hard, even for elite players.
So I just wait for the next game. I am about over the Simmons story. But now it appears Embiid bruised his right knee last night and is questionable for Brooklyn. This franchise hangs by a thread. When Embiid missed his normal dozen games last season, Simmons generally took over. He scored 42 points against Utah in one game that Embiid missed. If Joel sits tonight, that puts Drummond in the lineup. The versatility that Simmons provided will be missed immediately, in the home opener. Ben might not be a championship point guard but he could fill in all over the court. That’s his real talent. And it’s gone. With no replacement until Morey realizes he has no leverage at all.
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We shouldn’t judge people for having genuine mental-health issues, but all of us are judged by the people with whom we choose to associate. If Simmons wants people to believe he actually has a hard-to-diagnose injury (mental health, back stiffness, etc.), he should hire a new agent. You only get to lose your credibility once, and Rich Paul blew his on Anthony Davis.
I'm on the plenty of blame to go around wagon, but good lord is this true: there's blame for Simmons, he's either immature or psychologically unstable. But Morey's job is literally to deal with these types of issues -- foresee them, prevent them, turn them to the team's advantage. He's somehow overseen Simmons moving from a huge asset to a devalued asset to this truly idiotic comment that he's willing to dispense with him as an asset altogether. Oy! Again, in a just world for Morey, Simmons would be a good soldier and we can all agree that he has flaws on teh court and is a head case in one sense or the other. But....Morey is paid big bucks to deal precisely with the real world of sports which is filled with weird personalities.
Like GP, I'm not a Sixers fan, so...proceed.
edit: oh, and the mention of Bill B says it all: Belly would both never trash his own player and, once a player is a distraction, he'd do what's best for the team and get the player the hell out of there.
Yeah BFB just traded Gilmore for a 6th. That's the market for him right now, so that's what he took. And he complimented him on the way out the door.
As Bill would say, it is what it is.
I forgot how perfect the Patriots have been in terms of excellent character players over the years. Never had any problems.
But that's not the issue Terry. Nor did anyone say the Patriots players were all well behaved model citizens. But the Pats did take chances on lots of players that other teams had problems with. And some worked out well and others didn't.
But the issue is how to best deal with a problem for the organization, which allows the organization to function as best it can. I'm not sure the 76ers will get par value or what Morey sees as fair value for Simmons. And the the issue seems to be getting worse. It may be in the best interest to sell low on Simmons, get decent value and move forward.
I agree, and so do the 76ers fans I know back home. They want him gone. He is dead to them. The playoff choke last year started in the very first playoff game when he went 0-for-6 from the FT line. In the last week of the regular season, he was something like 9-for-11 from the line. The FT choking continued throughout the playoffs. And that’s what troubles Philly fans. Ben was scared. Who wants that kind of player?
Just get a solid guard in return who can provide depth and beat a press, make his free throws, play defense. And won’t start choking once the playoffs begin.
Sixers need a few more scandals like this to get into the Pats floor of the hotel. Nobody is saying otherwise.
Narrow view of how NEP pro personnel handles things more quietly than Morey currently is.
Point taken though.
I mean, what would his teammates flying out have accomplished? His issue wasn't with his teammates, his issue was with management, coaching and his not wanting to be there, is Joel Embiid gonna give him a pep talk and change that? Leaking that they wanted to fly out and he told them no is just self-serving bullshit to make them (and by them I mean Embiid likely) look good, it had no purpose.
Bill Bellichick would have either built a system that used Simmons to his fullest or traded him when he knew their wants didn't align, even if it risked tanking last season.
What Morey is terrible at is dealing with people. He misplayed this in many ways but the obvious ones are:
1. Dangling Simmons in trade talks while saying he wasn't, then going behind Simmons' back to get a teammate's sign off on dealing him, that poisons the well with the player and the agent, trades are part of the game, but players want to know that they might get traded, and they certainly don't like GMs who straight up lie about it. Some people hated Danny for how he treated players as "assets" but many respected that he was upfront that he was willing to trade anyone for the right price, and that he was upfront with guys whose names came out in trade talks. Morey is all of the former, but none of the latter.
2. Playing this ridiculous public hardball game with Simmons. If you are trying to bully a guy into playing for you, you're doing it wrong. He should have been in constant contact with Simmons and his agents all summer, even if Ben chose not to take his calls, Klutch would, you build out what his issues are, how you handle them, how each side should approach it if there isn't a reasonable deal. Yopu show them you're making an effort, and you make a deal, this is the kind of thing you're willing to do, this isn't, whether he'll report, if he reports what he'll do, you likely give Klutch permission to quietly talk to interested teams.
A huge part of being a GM is keeping up interpersonal relationships with players, agents, and other executives, Morey is bad at it and it hurts his teams. He is treating this like it's 2K and if he fines the guy enough he'll drop his trade request and that's it, but it isn't an algorithm, it's a person, trying to bully a person rarely really works.
Also, probably a reason he can't find a deal is that he has few good relationships around the league, and lacks the self-awareness to realize that demanding full price or more for a guy who doesn't want to play for you isn't going to work. Morey is a pretty smart guy, but he's generally seen in the league as an arrogant prick, and he makes no effort to change that.
https://www.espn.com/nba/insider/story/_/id/31936077/ben-simmons-trades-want-see-including-nba-blockbusters-76ers-blazers
1
Kings get:
Ben Simmons
76ers get:
Buddy Hield
Tyrese Haliburton
Marvin Bagley III
2
Trail Blazers get:
Ben Simmons
Tyrese Maxey
Two first-round picks
76ers get:
Damian Lillard
3
Trail Blazers get:
Ben Simmons
76ers get:
CJ McCollum
Nassir Little
Future first-round pick (two years after Philly's first-rounder to Chicago is conveyed)
4
Bulls get:
Ben Simmons
76ers get:
Zach LaVine
Derrick Jones Jr.
5
Timberwolves get:
Ben Simmons
76ers get:
D'Angelo Russell
2022 protected first-round pick (top-3 protected in 22, top-2 protected in 23 and unprotected in 2024)
2024 protected first-round pick (two years after the 2022 first is conveyed -- top-5 protected, top-3 protected and top-1 protected)
6
Cavaliers get:
Ben Simmons
76ers get:
Kevin Love
2022 first-round pick (unprotected)
2024 first-round pick (top-4 protected in 2024, unprotected in 2025)
2026 first-round pick (available two years after 2024 pick conveys, top-4 protected in 2026 and 2027, unprotected in 2028)
1
Kings get:
Ben Simmons
76ers get:
Buddy Hield
Tyrese Haliburton
Marvin Bagley III
2
Trail Blazers get:
Ben Simmons
Tyrese Maxey
Two first-round picks
76ers get:
Damian Lillard
3
Trail Blazers get:
Ben Simmons
76ers get:
CJ McCollum
Nassir Little
Future first-round pick (two years after Philly's first-rounder to Chicago is conveyed)
4
Bulls get:
Ben Simmons
76ers get:
Zach LaVine
Derrick Jones Jr.
5
Timberwolves get:
Ben Simmons
76ers get:
D'Angelo Russell
2022 protected first-round pick (top-3 protected in 22, top-2 protected in 23 and unprotected in 2024)
2024 protected first-round pick (two years after the 2022 first is conveyed -- top-5 protected, top-3 protected and top-1 protected)
6
Cavaliers get:
Ben Simmons
76ers get:
Kevin Love
2022 first-round pick (unprotected)
2024 first-round pick (top-4 protected in 2024, unprotected in 2025)
2026 first-round pick (available two years after 2024 pick conveys, top-4 protected in 2026 and 2027, unprotected in 2028)
I hear your conclusion and was aksing how you got there in terms of evidence--which I don't really see above.
Morey had no lack of suitors once he left Houston, in spite of having created a massive challenge with China. He has made a massive number of trades - that is not consistent with your description. That includes huge, complex deals like the Harden trade and many others. I certainly see the articles criticizing him, but I don't take those in a vacuum. What I see in terms of actions and evidence is that he is valued by team decision makers and able to make a huge number of moves with other GMs/team leaders. So I think we need to consider that data as well as the stories which may be real, and may also be planted by agents or teams who have an angle.
I do not think you have any idea what he did or did not do in terms of communication with Simmons this summer, or what of any gap was Morey and what was positioning from Simmons. I don't either---but my conclusion doesn't depend on a totally unfounded assumption about what it was or was not.
So I mean...I can totally imagine Morey is a jerk and it impacts them. But there's a bunch of reasons to think he's a highly regarded executive too.
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I find it odd how eagerly some people jump to believe Simmons's claim of a mental health explanation that was offered alongside a bullshit claim of back tightness. Just a tip for those of you that want to lie - keep it simple. Piling on explanations is an easily-recognizable tactic of liars.
A friend of mine took a much-needed leave from work for a mental health reason and she didn't add a random physical ailment to make it more believable. My best friend regularly cancels plans with me due to severe anxiety and he doesn't claim an ankle injury alongside it to make it more believable.
Ben Simmons has been unwilling to shoot for 4 years in the league. I don't know about his career before that, he's possibly been unwilling to shoot his whole life. If he finally figured out this offseason that it was a mental health issue and was getting treated for it that would have been a big event for him (anyone who has dealt with mental health knows how impactful a diagnosis can be) and he wouldn't feel the need to color things up with a fake back problem. Hell, even if the back problem was real someone suffering from a mental health issue that takes precedence wouldn't feel the need to mention it.
A friend of mine took a much-needed leave from work for a mental health reason and she didn't add a random physical ailment to make it more believable. My best friend regularly cancels plans with me due to severe anxiety and he doesn't claim an ankle injury alongside it to make it more believable.
Ben Simmons has been unwilling to shoot for 4 years in the league. I don't know about his career before that, he's possibly been unwilling to shoot his whole life. If he finally figured out this offseason that it was a mental health issue and was getting treated for it that would have been a big event for him (anyone who has dealt with mental health knows how impactful a diagnosis can be) and he wouldn't feel the need to color things up with a fake back problem. Hell, even if the back problem was real someone suffering from a mental health issue that takes precedence wouldn't feel the need to mention it.
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