NBA Legend Isiah Thomas berates the Philadelphia 76ers for the way they are handling the Ben Simmons situation.
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The Ben Simmons-Philadelphia 76ers situation seems to have reached an impasse. While the Australian guard continues to sit out games stating mental health issues, Sixers keep refusing trade offers. The front office has severely overestimated Ben’s value and cannot find a suitable trade.
It appears that Simmons has made up his mind to leave Philly for good and the Sixers are only hurting team chemistry by forcing him to stay. The organization continues to fine him for every missed game since Nov. 5 which is not helping the case.
After the team blamed him for playoff failure, Ben completely cut off ties with them in the offseason. He refused to return to training camp, however, the threat of losing millions of dollars brought him back.
ESPN Sources: After initial reluctance, Sixers All-Star Ben Simmons has met with a team-recommended specialist to discuss mental health concerns. Among other issues, the organization had recently reinstituted fines for Simmons’ failure to agree to those meetings.
— Adrian Wojnarowski (@wojespn) November 8, 2021
He didn’t comply with the coaching staff during practice. Later, he spoke to the team and Doc Rivers about his mental health and asked to remain sidelined until he feels better. The way this team has handled the whole situation, it doesn’t look like Ben will return willingly and the legendary point guard Isiah Thomas is of the same opinion.
Philadelphia 76ers brought this upon themselves by dissing Ben Simmons
Former NBA player Isiah Thomas sat down with Shaquille O’Neal for ‘The Big Podcast” where he discussed the Ben Simmons drama. He berated Philadelphia 76ers for the way they threw their point guard under the bus.
The post-game press conference after Game 7 against Atlanta Hawks in the playoffs last year is the reason behind this rift between the Sixers and Simmons.
When asked if Ben deserves to be a starting point guard for a championship team, Coach Doc Rivers replied with “I don’t know”. As if that wasn’t enough Joel Embiid directly put the blame on his teammate by suggesting that the passed-up dunk was the turning point in the game.
While these accusations aren’t completely out of line, they shouldn’t be coming from your own team. Isiah Thomas stresses on this point as well, saying “They dogged him… your team, your coach, and your organization are supposed to protect you in your bad moments, they’re not supposed to air your dirty laundry”.
He drew parallels between Ben’s struggling offense in the playoffs and Shaq shooting 4-18 from the FT line. Isiah said that while Phil Jackson was supportive in that instance, Doc Rivers expressed his doubts publicly.
However, as the Pacers’ head coach during the early 2000s, it seems Isiah is having a case of selective memory loss. The whole Kobe-Shaq circus involved Phil Jackson making some truly scathing comments about both of his superstars with the media.
In fact, Jackson did nothing but take shots at Kobe all through his book called Eleven Rings, published in 2005. It is a testament to the Black Mamba’s mentality that he still demanded to play with Jackson despite this.
Ultimately, one of the reasons the Sixers paid Ben max money was the premise that he would work to become a better offensive player. That hasn’t transpired, which definitely leads to dissent in the workplace. Both Doc and Embiid seem to have reached the end of their tether.
