The Ben Simmons situation for the Philadelphia 76ers continues to get ugly and it continues to be messy. While the Sixers are still looking to find the right trade value for him, the 25-year old is making things tough for everybody involved.
The Sixers begin training camp on Sept. 28 and Simmons has every intention of just not showing up for it at all. That makes sense as the embattled star is just desperate to get out of Philadelphia, but at the moment, his value is low. It would make some sense to at least show up to camp and play nice in order to get his value a little higher.
However, Simmons does not see it that way as he has told the franchise, according to ESPN’s Brian Windhorst, that it is not his job to fix or increase his value.
Windhorst:
One of the messages that Ben has sent back towards Philly is that it’s not his job to fix his trade value. It’s not his job to correct his trade value or raise his trade value. That is not something that is on the menu for him and so, with that out there, I don’t think he’s interested in coming in and trying to change the situation. One thing that I think is interesting is that his contract is structured in a way that he’s going to get half of his money by October 1st. $16.5 million of his $33 million comes before he has to worry about getting fined a single dime for 41 of his game so he’s going to have a war chest if he can just sit this out.
This has turned into a soap opera and it is getting worse on both sides. Sure, coach Doc Rivers did not help things with his comments after the Game 7 loss and even Joel Embiid’s comments weren’t great, but Simmons’ value would have been higher if he just showed any type of progression on the offensive end of the floor.
Simmons is a talented player, no doubt, and he will continue to be an All-Star no matter where he goes, but until he shows any type of progression on the offensive end, teams will be a little hesitant. He has been the same player on that end since he came into the league and at some point, there needs to be progression on offense.
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