For the past four seasons, Ben Simmons has been a key piece for the Philadelphia 76ers. Alongside Joel Embiid and several other talented players, Simmons has helped lead the Sixers to a respectable standing in the East.
But over the past few years, things haven’t exactly been bliss. Thanks to repeated early playoff eliminations, and a failure by the young guard to show an improvement in his shooting ability, it seems like the relationship between Ben and the Sixers has deteriorated to a breaking point.
“Ben Simmons says he refuses to play for the Sixers. He wants to go to three California teams. There’s so much bad blood between him and the team.”
Unfortunately, the situation is only getting uglier by the week, and it seems only a matter of time before he’s gone from the franchise completely.
NBA analyst Chris Broussard compared the situation to that of James Harden and the Houston Rockets in 2020.
“There is talk that Ben Simmons wants out of Philadelphia just as much as they want to trade him.
And that he’s not even returning anybody’s calls within the organization. And there is news that he even won’t go to training camp, that’s how badly he wants out. If there is truth to this noise then you do have to move him.
I get that not wanting to trade him for less than they should get for, but you don’t want him going into training camp when you got designs getting to the NBA finals and if he goes into training camp and is disgruntled and just brings everybody down with his attitude, it almost becomes like a James Harden situation in Houston last year.”
James Harden’s situation got pretty ugly in Houston last year. After a disappointing performance in the playoffs, Harden basically forced Houston’s hand by cutting off all contact with the team and causing a major split in the locker room.
And while things haven’t gotten nearly as bad in Philly, there is no guarantee it won’t get worse as time rolls on.
At this point, we’ll just have to wait and see.
