He has consistently said he wasn't mentally ready to return, whether we want to call that a mental health explanation or not, it isn't new.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.
As to the back... it's the NBA, everybody probably has something that hurts, that's pro sports. It's something that's pretty well known, every player is less than 100% most of the time, they just tend to play through it. Simmons has no incentive to play through it, so he got treatment then left. I doubt either thing is "fake" it's just a question of degrees. If his mental state was that he was excited to get out there and play, maybe he gets treatment for a tight back and then goes to practice, since he doesn't particularly want to be there he's not gonna practice.
I get that Morey is highly regarded, and he is good at a lot of his job, he's long been a forerunner on good analytics use, he's got a very good rep for asset management. He's a solid GM. I am also comfortable with my assessment of him on the personal side, it's been said by way too many people way too often. I don't think GMs won't deal with him because they don't like him, my point was, he's not known for having good relationships, that means you don't get favors, you don't get the benefit of the doubt, your negotiations are going to be less smooth. His biggest issue is that people think they have him over a barrel, and he thinks that Simmons' value should be the same regardless of the 76ers situation, which seems like a bad reading of the room.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.
As to the communication.... sure we don't know exactly what happened over the summer, but we had a string of leaks from both sides that we can read into, and most importantly, we have what he is doing now. His current actions don't make much sense in terms of relationship management. He's trying to be a public bully, and that is just a really bad tack that seems based in not really understanding relationship building. So when someone who has long been accused of being bad at relationship building makes public statements and takes actions that poison a relationship that is already sour, in part (if we believe various leaks from various sources) because the player felt mistreated last year in trade discussions, I'm willing to take those two things and tie them together.. is it 100%.. maybe not, but there is more than enough smoke there.
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