We're not quite a year into the Rivers-Morey era. I agree it hasn't started out well, but I don't think they fully understood the situation until they got into the season.
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Ben Simmons wants out of Philadelphia
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Well...that's quite an indictment. They're nothing but experienced and each were brought in to get the team over the hump...not to spend time in evaluation mode.
This is Embiid’s team and has been for at least three years. He has matured and has taken on the role of spokesman. The rest of the team is behind their star player in this soap opera.
The team has been working on a new rotation in preseason. Deep shooter Isiah Joe will get more minutes. Shake Milton is hurt right now so Tyrese Maxsey will start at the point tomorrow night. Matisse Thybulle will take over some of Ben’s defensive chores and with the contact rule on 3-pointers no longer available to shooters, Thybulle will block more shots.
Management has been building a labor relations case against Simmons. Today‘s suspension after Ben refused to participate in a drill was the first legal step. Ben practicing on Monday with a cell phone in his sweatpants didn’t impress his teammates.
Doc expects Ben at practice on Thursday, echoing management’s plan to let Ben hang himself by dogging it again. Unless Ben begs off with a fake injury, he will be suspended for Friday’s home opener. No way an emotionally fragile player wants to hear 20,000 fans boo his every move.
My brother lives in the Philly area. He says the fan base would rather have Simmons sit out the whole season. Make a trade for a veteran point guard and let the kids (Maxsey and Joe) play.
The team has been working on a new rotation in preseason. Deep shooter Isiah Joe will get more minutes. Shake Milton is hurt right now so Tyrese Maxsey will start at the point tomorrow night. Matisse Thybulle will take over some of Ben’s defensive chores and with the contact rule on 3-pointers no longer available to shooters, Thybulle will block more shots.
Management has been building a labor relations case against Simmons. Today‘s suspension after Ben refused to participate in a drill was the first legal step. Ben practicing on Monday with a cell phone in his sweatpants didn’t impress his teammates.
Doc expects Ben at practice on Thursday, echoing management’s plan to let Ben hang himself by dogging it again. Unless Ben begs off with a fake injury, he will be suspended for Friday’s home opener. No way an emotionally fragile player wants to hear 20,000 fans boo his every move.
My brother lives in the Philly area. He says the fan base would rather have Simmons sit out the whole season. Make a trade for a veteran point guard and let the kids (Maxsey and Joe) play.
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Jimmy isn't a good shooter, but he's a willing one and yes he's free throw reliant but... he makes free throws. You say Simmons outplayed him in that series, but as I remember it, Jimmy was the only one who wanted the ball in his hands at the end of those games. You can't just shrug off that Ben Simmons only performs in lower leverage minutes and most all of his offensive value is in transition, which isn't as relevant in the playoffs.
You name two teams that he'd be a fit on because it's so rare for a team to have 4 guys who don't want the ball or play in the paint - what is the value of a player who is so limited that he needs such a defined team around him? Both of those teams already have high-usage players who need the ball in their hands - what is Simmons adding in the half-court? And he's not an interior defender like a Draymond - we've never seen him handle the back line responsibilities of a C and he won't have Embiid behind him as backup in either situation. I just don't see how much he actually improves the Warriors when they have such a history with Dray and he'd be an improvement over D-LO in Minny, but I don't know that he makes them a contender or anything.
Like - he's a good player in a vacuum because he's big, athletic, and skilled in some ways, but the application of him on a winning NBA team is extremely difficult proposition.
Again excuses people are making for Simmons are unreal:
“He’s 25.”
“He’s good at other things like playing defense.”
“He’s an All Star.”
It’s unbelievable. This dude is like single-handedly setting this franchise back five years and everyone’s bending over backwards to blame other people (who made kind of critical remarks about him) for what is a complete lack of maturity and grit.
Even having to make this argument makes me feel like some dirty Neanderthal cretin. Jesus Christ.
“He’s 25.”
“He’s good at other things like playing defense.”
“He’s an All Star.”
It’s unbelievable. This dude is like single-handedly setting this franchise back five years and everyone’s bending over backwards to blame other people (who made kind of critical remarks about him) for what is a complete lack of maturity and grit.
Even having to make this argument makes me feel like some dirty Neanderthal cretin. Jesus Christ.
Perennial all star or not, he's still a guy who added nothing to his game in 4 years. Nothing. That speaks to his professionalism plenty.
People quibble with that characterization and claim that his defense has improved or something else, but it hasn't. Box score numbers--same guy. Advanced metrics--same guy. Some adv stats show increase here or there, others show decreases. Basically a flatline. He does not work on his craft. I wouldn't respect him as a teammate either.
I'm sure Rivers thought that he could fix Simmons and Morey probably believed that he could upgrade the talent around Embiid and Simmons. They were both wrong. I place more blame on the front office/ownership for not making moving Simmons for value job one a year ago. They went from turning down the chance to add Harden and move immediately into the first tier of contenders to now trying to salvage something from a Simmons trade.
And, honestly, they're going to need a star to go full frontal Harden on his team to get anything of real value. He's a fantastic defensive roleplayer, but his offensive game is such that he's an other guy on the floor level player that needs to dominate the ball. There just aren't a lot of reams with multiple catch & shoot stars to make full use of Simmons' offensive game. Minnesota is one of the few teams, and what do they have to deal that fits with Philly's timeline? Morey really fucked the poodle here.
He just came in really good and had little room to improve outside of shooting.
It also doesn't speak for professionalism. Sometimes players just don't improve and it isn't due to lack of effort. All players have ceilings. Maybe he was far closer to a finished product than we all realized.
That's cool. One NBA GM is going to make the same excuse and acquire the guy.
Do you have a point? Does it matter who the blame goes to? Does it change anything?
Come on. He came into the NBA when he was 20. No athletes are a finished products at 20.
Closer to his ceiling maybe, but nobody is done improving at 20.
None of this excuses the bus injury imposed by his teammate and coach (Doc should be fucking ashamed of himself), and Morey is handling this with unnecessary roughness.
I'm not sure why everyone keeps saying Simmons hasn't improved... it is not at all true. He hasn't improved.... his shooting from the floor.
He came into the league a decent defender, he's now one of the handful of best defenders in the league.
He;s shown small improvements in his efficiency and FT shooting.
Maybe he improves more, maybe he doesn't, but treating his willingness and ability to shoot 3s as the be all end all of development isn't really accurate.
Some guys come into the league terrible defenders and never improve, but improve their offense. Ben is the flip side of that, he's shown only very small improvements on offense, but significant gains on Defense to reach real heights.
He came into the league a decent defender, he's now one of the handful of best defenders in the league.
He;s shown small improvements in his efficiency and FT shooting.
Maybe he improves more, maybe he doesn't, but treating his willingness and ability to shoot 3s as the be all end all of development isn't really accurate.
Some guys come into the league terrible defenders and never improve, but improve their offense. Ben is the flip side of that, he's shown only very small improvements on offense, but significant gains on Defense to reach real heights.
I mean shooting is a pretty fundamental skill and he's actually gotten worse at it. And I'd argue that his failure to improve his shooting is hurting the rest of his offensive game. I would also point out that since high school he refused to shoot jumpers and free throws with the same hand, and still shoots jumpers right handed and free throws lefty (as far as I know, anyway, I didn't watch enough Sixers games last year to actually see Ben SImmons shoot a jumper, but he's still shooting free throws lefty). And I'd argue that that's incredibly unprofessional.
Amen. Boston got extremely lucky when they drew the third pick that night.
The thread is an example of the decline in quality in the Port Cellar. My only rationale explanation is that people don't actually watch any of the games, or understand basketball. It's bad.
Agree that someone is going to make that excuse.
But it doesn’t justify really poor behavior and I think it weakens the product when we accept poor, unprofessional behavior as “the cost of doing business in todays NBA.” People used to say the same thing about owners like Donald Sterling – that the league would always be saddled with racists like him in the owners box. Well, Adam Silver proved otherwise. Lebron has as well with his off the court (and on the court) leadership. .
The NBA is a great product. It really is. But as I mentioned above, guys like Simmons and Kyrie put the progress they’ve made at risk by giving the “shut up and dribble” crowd ammunition with blatantly unprofessional behavior and refusing to honor contracts for reasons no union or independent arbitrator can possibly defend.
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I said closer to a finished product than people thought, not that he was finished.
That was the knock on Jayson Tatum pre draft. Close to a finished product. He was even younger.
Plus a lot of players don't really improve. We just forget about them because they usually suck and are out of the NBA in a few years.
And when I say improve, I mean more than incremental growth. What would Ben Simmons have looked like with a "leap?" One of the 10 best players of all time?
yeah, and also... most rookies are nowhere near as good as Ben Simmons.
Like I get that people get frustrated by Simmons' many flaws, but to treat 1 series as "oh he's broken" is silly. Ben Simmons is a really good NBA player, I don't see how anyone could watch any amount of basketball and not admit that.
There aren't many examples of this to be sure. But Juwan Howard comes to mind. He was as complete and smart a college freshmen player as I have seen in his first year at Michigan. But he was static after and didn't appreciably improve. Excellent all around player, never took a leap to the next level.
There might have been a better way, or a more private way, for Doc to communicate his issues than publicly hanging his troubled star player out to dry and essentially blaming him for an early exit from the play-offs. IMO most everyone who heard Doc understood he put the loss on Simmons and doubts on his ability to play PG in Philly. .
On the latter issue it seems Doc was prescient.
Because it's not 1 series, it's every playoff exit they've had. This conversation has been happening ever since him and Embiid teamed up because while Embiid has turned into an MVP level player, Simmons hasn't really improved. People aren't saying he's terrible at basketball but that his limitations are debilitating and he's difficult to build around. You have admitted that much. When only two teams can feasibly handle his idiosyncracies, that is not a super valuable player.
It's far more than 2, it's just some landing spots aren't realistic. He'd look pretty amazing next to to the Jays.
People keep saying that he has improved on D. I don't get that either.
First chart shows regression, followed by "became as good as Marcus Smart".
Second chart shows basically no net increase. Started good, sunk, got better.
Third chart shows 17/18, 19/20 & 20/21 basically the same guy. 18/19 omitted (was lowest of four, matching Darko Box D-DPM).
I stopped here, but show me the numbers that support that Ben has improved materially on D or actually at anything.
In a just and perfect world . . . .
Well, actually I have no idea what would happen in a just and perfect world. Maybe star teachers would be paid $30M a year and basketball players would be earning minimum wage.
But I'm not making excuses for Simmons. I think he's a unique basketball talent but I'm glad he's not on the Cs (although if we could get him without giving either of the Jays, that would be amazing). I'm just talking to the reality of the situation, which is if you are one of the 30 best anythings in this world, most people will bend over backwards to make you very, very happy so long as you remain one of the 30 best at your profession. And those who don't are going to miss out.
Simmons is unhappy. Therefore PHI screwed the pooch. And unless Morey can figure out how to pull a rabbit out of a hat or hits a grand slam on a draft pick, my guess is that Morey and Rivers basically slammed PHI's championship window closed.
As management, if you are going to take on a star player, you better have thought it through. I don't think Morey or Rivers thought this one through. Not an excuse; just my read of the tea leaves.
Hmm. Looking at Juwan Howard's advanced stats, it turns out in retrospect he wasn't a very good basketball player.
The 'Zards had Webber, Wallace, and Howard.
And of the 3, they kept Howard.
That says all you need to know about that franchise.
Even unrealistic landing spots have their challenges. If he's your third best best player, you're probably doing alright, but Ben Simmons doesn't want to be the Draymond Green of a team; he wants the ball in his hands, which makes him a tough fit even on the Celtics. He's in a weird position of not being good enough at scoring to be a high usage player, but also not being good enough at off-ball skills to be a role player. If he's a taller Bruce Brown, that's cool, but it's not worth $30 million and a total overhaul of your team identity.
Right, because ending up like Rick Ankiel isn't saying the same thing. Or maybe you aren't that familiar with Rick as you think.
This is the thing--people whining about Simmons' lack of offensive improvement overlook that he worked his ass off to become one of the best defenders in the league. He's not a lazy bust, even if he does have some head case issues on offense.
And people who are whining about the lack of appreciation of Simmons' defensive skills overlook that many of us just don't want him on our team during crunch time of a crucial playoff game.
I do.
Basketball is a team game, as we all know and I also think one bad apple can spoil the whole bunch. You say potato (coach and teammates threw him under the bus), I say potato (dude is a malcontent), either way, I don't care. There is enough smoke here that makes me not want to risk those type of resources on this guy. Joel Embiid is freaking awesome. Who wouldn't want to go to war with that guy?
Just my $.02 on this...
If Rob Williams finishes top3 DPOY this season, how would you feel about him on the floor during crunch time?
You'd want him on the floor since you realize that Tatum/Brown will handle the big shots and he'd be there for the dunk if the perimeter players get doubled. Plus defense matters more than the reg season in a slowed-down, half-court playoff game.
Wait - so if the Cs are able to basically trade Smart for Simmons straight up, we wouldn't want Simmons because we'd rather have Marcus on the floor for chemistry reasons? Are we talking about the same Marcus Smart that infuriates people with his decision-making?
Did you see Simmons guarding Trae Young against ATL? He's the only reason PHI even had a shot in that series because no one else on PHI could guard him at all.
BTW, Embiid may be a freaking awesome basically player when he's not tired but that's the same Embiid who got swept by BOS when he played without Simmons not that long ago. Embiid did his own disappearing act late in games, but for a different reason.
This entire situation in the playoffs from both young players is an example of why contenders load up on veterans…….so young players aren’t thrown in a playoff situation before they are ready. For the record, I’d love to see TL in a G7 end of game situation……but I would be pleasantly surprised if he handled it well as this stage of his career.
Marcus Smart never went to practice with a phone in his sweatpants.
Yes.
Love your passion guys. Let's just agree to disagree on this one.
Yes.
Love your passion guys. Let's just agree to disagree on this one.
Everyone knows what is going on here. Morey is holding him hostage and it’s total BS. For all we know, his agent told him to do this as that who is calling the shots here. I’ve never heard the word malcontent associated with Simmons before. The guy is going to run himself out of the league the same way Hinkie did when you aren’t able to communicate to accomplish win-win scenarios.
People keep saying that 1. he's one of the best defenders in the league and 2. that he has improved dramatically on defense in his NBA career.
I keep asking for some evidence of this. I have posted DARKO and RAPTOR charts that seem to say that neither of those propositions is true. Well, he's obviously a very good defender, but there nothing to support top-3 suggestions that get thrown around here. And I haven't yet seen stats that support this supposedly large growth.
Please tell me where I'm wrong.
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We're talking about a max player here. For how many other max players do you need to make these kinds of exceptions? Defense is worth something, but not that much. Especially when we don't have evidence that he would be an all-NBA interior defender.
Yeah. He's just the first Celtic player anyone can recall missing a team flight. So much more professional. Give me a break.
What's better? Showing up on time with a cell phone or not showing up at all?
It doesn't take a genius head coach or extraordinary roster creation to construct an efficient post-season offense around a rim protecting five, who provides vertical spacing and can shoot (a little) outside of floater range. The same cannot be said for a perimeter player. If Simmons could play the five on defense, ala Draymond, and was willing to shoot just a little, he would have been traded by now because he would fit on a ton of rosters, just not Philly's.
Holding him hostage? Asking a guy with 4 years left on his deal to show up and be a professional, while you look for a deal that makes sense for both sides is now unconscionable? The beginning of camp is the worst possible time to trade anyone.
If you think Simmons' is following a script written by Rich Paul here, then you think Paul is an idiot. The outright refusal to participate in a drill and the phone in the pocket are stupid tactical mistakes. There are far more effective, and less damaging ways, to put pressure on Philly to get a deal done sooner rather than later.
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