February 01, 2022
Since Ben Simmons retreated from the public eye in late June — at least from a basketball perspective — everyone else has been left to fill in the blanks for him. If winning over public favor is something that matters to him, that approach hasn't exactly paid dividends for Simmons yet, even with the NBA trade deadline staring us down a little over a week from today.
In the latest dispatch on the situation, ESPN's Ramona Shelburne dove deep into a lot of particulars, from where Simmons has been working out to why he feels the way he does to the precise amount of money Simmons has lost during the process (over $19 million in total, according to her bookkeeping). Certain parts of the story help you to feel sympathy for Simmons, whose play in the second round against Atlanta certainly indicated all was not well for the 25-year-old.
Yet within the story, there are pristine examples of the problem with Simmons, or perhaps the people around Simmons if we are being charitable. This sequence in the middle of Shelburne's article is perhaps the best distillation of the issue one could offer:
There's more, if anyone needs a full accounting -- past slights that have become magnified with the passage of time.
According to sources close to Simmons, he's upset that Embiid seemed to blame him for last season's playoff loss, when Simmons did not blame Embiid for Embiid's poor showing in the playoffs against the Toronto Raptors in 2019. He's frustrated that Rivers didn't come to see him while he was training in Los Angeles last summer.
Simmons doesn't dispute that he didn't reply when Rivers texted and called him several times over the summer asking to see him. But in hindsight, Simmons feels Rivers and the Sixers could've done more, like show up at a well-known gym in the San Fernando Valley where he was training. [ESPN]
2019's defeat to the Toronto Raptors is known for a lot of things, and in Philadelphia, one of them is Embiid's gargantuan plus-minus during a series decided on the margins, a +90 across seven games and +10 in a 45-minute effort in Game 7, when the Sixers lost by two points at the horn.
Embiid's numbers for that series were absolutely down compared to his usual standard of play — the big man averaged just 17.6 points and 8.7 rebounds on 37 percent shooting, unwell and unable to solve the Marc Gasol puzzle — but there's no honest accounting of that series that could conclude Embiid was responsible for their defeat. And to be clear, you wouldn't conclude the same about Simmons, either, despite his production (11.6 points, 7.3 rebounds, 4.9 assists) lagging far behind Embiid and despite the Sixers relegating Simmons to off-ball duty to make Jimmy Butler the de facto point guard of the team. Kawhi Leonard's ridiculous, all-time great performance would have been even uglier had Simmons not tracked him around for most of the series, with Leonard teeing off against basically anyone not named Simmons for seven games.
The problem here is not the numbers or the portion of blame each gets for the loss, but the misunderstanding of why people are disappointed in Simmons, why they become disillusioned with athletes at all. People are willing to forgive failure and mistakes for people who prove themselves willing to recognize their own limitations and work to fix them. What they won't do is show respect to someone who opts out of even trying when things get tough.
That's the fundamental difference here. Embiid was mocked for crying in the aftermath of Game 7 and booed by home fans for flirting with Jimmy Butler on social media during a tumultuous 2020 season. When Embiid was humbled without Simmons as the Celtics served Philadelphia a sweep in the bubble playoffs, there were more than a few prominent critics who suggested Simmons was the real engine behind their success. Instead of retreating to anonymity and looking to go where the spotlight wasn't as bright, Embiid looked inward and produced the best season of his career in 2020-21, rounding out his skill set while addressing long-running concerns about his off-court approach. He has built on that even further this season, adding new skills to his game to keep Philly afloat with Simmons in exile.
By comparison, Simmons has frequently scolded critics throughout his career for not knowing basketball when they choose to question him. His coach joined in that nonsensical approach last season, right up until Simmons' limitations marched them off of a cliff like a bad Wile E Coyote gag. The more his tactics and limitations have been questioned by the public, the further he has retreated into his shell, offseason workout videos unable to save him from the pressure of the second round. Expecting him to absorb all criticism as motivational fuel as Embiid has is unreasonable, given what we know about their differences in personality. But that doesn't square his refusal to change anything about his offensive game after the sport has shown him it is an unsustainable way to win at the highest levels.
What Simmons and his people seem to miss is that most people demanding more out of him are not bad-faith actors. The Philly fans who have taken heat in the months since June opened their arms throughout the ugly playoff run, urging him on at the free-throw line each and every time he marched there. Most media criticism has come with qualifiers like, "If he could just develop a workable jumper..." not because they feel that's all that matters, but because they can see the artificial ceiling his multi-faceted game has if he doesn't step out of his comfort zone.
And that's what this is ultimately about: Simmons' comfort zone, which the anecdote about Rivers does a good job of underlining. Finding fault with Rivers' post Game 7 comments is fair enough, but the demand from Simmons here makes the player look bad, not the coach. With the two clearly on shaky terms, Rivers is well-known to have made repeated efforts to contact his player and mend fences, but would likely have been viewed as overstepping his boundaries if he simply showed up to face a person who showed no interest in contacting him. A reasonable person looks at that situation and says Rivers understands the need to give people space sometimes. An unreasonable person expects you to read their mind and do/say exactly what they want even when they refuse to speak with you. It's the base upon which every toxic relationship is built.
All anyone has ever asked Simmons for is the same they've asked of every single teammate he has suited up with: to try. Trying despite failure, trying whether it's comfortable or not, trying new things because it helps others and not just you individually. When he has done so, he has earned applause and accolades from fans and media alike, most notably as he has risen to All-Defense teams on the strength of his dogged approach there.
Until Simmons and his people understand that's all anyone is asking for out of him, they're going to continue making themselves look ridiculous. And if we've learned anything about Simmons during his time in Philadelphia, avoiding things that make him look bad is a top-of-mind concern.
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