Why The Sixers Should Keep, And Never Play, Ben Simmons

Retrofitting

 Last night, Joel Embiid put up 50 points (!) in 27 minutes (!!) while basically looking like a 7-foot guy who could do everything on a basketball court that anyone, of any size, might ever want to do. He’s clearly in the best stretch of his life as a basketball player, and if you are a hoop fan, you just should watch every minute of this, because if Joel has taught us anything in his time in the NBA, it’s that health is fleeting.

Here’s the thing about our basketball Patronus: he’s gotten better every year. In college, he didn’t have range; while rehabbing for the first two years of his life as a pro, he developed that. He’s late to the game in life, and his footwork is now exquisite. His passing out of double teams used to be his downfall, and now it’s a strength. His conditioning used to be suspect, and now he’s just trucking people in the fourth quarter like he used to only do in the first half.

Embiid is, in every useful way, the antithesis of his once and likely never again teammate, Ben Simmons. (A guy who has decided he does not want to play basketball with this man as his teammate. No, seriously.)

Simmons, you may have heard, is battling Personal Mental Issues that can only be magically cured once the Sixers give him what he wants, which is a trade. The Sixers, realizing that the regular season is for marks at worst and practice at best, have taken their own sweet time about this and developed other assets (hello, Tyrese Maxey, speaking of players with an interest in getting better).

I have no idea what is going on in the head of Simmons. I only know what my eyes and data tells me, and here’s the ugly problem on that – there is nothing in Simmons’ game that says he wants to get better at his profession. Not shooting from the field, not shooting from the line, not being a good teammate. (And no, passing out of transition because it is the only thing you have confidence in doing is not being a good teammate. You also have to show up for work and practice and pretend that winning matters to you.)

I mean, why would he? He’s got a max contract, he’s got reality TV dating interests, and championships are clearly for marks and try hards like Embiid and Maxey. In a world where fame is no longer the unfortunate by-product of being good at what you do, but instead is the result of being good at being famous, he’s shown his true self. In full.

So on the one hand, the Sixers should move this problem for whatever they can get. On the other hand, I would be old-school *fine* with them just putting his career in cold storage until he gets old and not very famous at all.

It’s not fair to Embiid, or Maxey, or people who pay good money to see an honest game.

But it’s not as if Simmons won’t grift his next team as well. 

And everyone else who ever watches him play basketball.

So why should those fans get victimized?

And who knows, it might even stop the next Simmons from deciding to grift.