The Philadelphia 76ers are in a tough spot when it comes to their star point guard Ben Simmons. The Sixers are in a spot where they want to be able to get the most value in return for any possible Simmons deal, but they also want him to return to the floor.
Simmons ended his holdout on Oct. 11 and returned to the team in the middle of their preseason schedule, but he has yet to play a game for the team 32 games into the season. Per an NBL star, Simmons’ future could be decided a little after the Christmas holiday meaning either a trade will happen or he finally makes his season debut for the 2021-22 season.
It does seem that a trade is pretty unlikely considering that teams are more focused on having full rosters amid the current COVID wave amongst the teams. Per veteran NBA reporter Marc Stein–formerly with ESPN–there is little trade talk from league executives about Simmons.
Per Stein on the latest episode of his podcast, “Spotify Greenroom”, there was very little talk from executives while at the G League Showcase in Las Vegas:
I have to say just having spent three days in the gym wth lots of NBA exceutives…I heard so little about Ben Simmons in Vegas. Just remarkably little. That just illustrates, to me, just what a secondary thing trade pursuits are at the moment whereas normally, I think in that kind of environement, even if there was nothing happening with Ben, just kind of Ben predictions would have been flying around the gym and you just really didn’t get much of that.
One could make the argument that maybe Simmons doesn’t have the trade value that the Sixers expect him to have, and that could be a valid point. At the same time, teams are not focused on making a big blockbuster deal, at the moment. There are more pressing issues that teams have to deal with and maybe when the COVID wave does calm down a bit, that is when teams will begin looking towards the trade market then.
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