A lot has been said over the last decade about the Philadelphia 76ers and ‘the process’. ‘Trust the process’ became the rallying cry for the 76ers and their fanbase as they underwent a rebuild for the better part of the 2010s. Now, the 76ers are a title contender with Joel Embiid and James Harden. The best team they had before this was built around Embiid, Ben Simmons, and Jimmy Butler.
Jimmy Butler was in Philadelphia for a brief period of time, and the 76ers believed that combining Butler with Embiid and Simmons would form a big three that would win the NBA championship. But that never happened, and the trio was knocked out in the 2nd round of the 2019 NBA playoffs by the Toronto Raptors, after one of the most incredible shots in NBA history by Kawhi Leonard, which got plenty of lucky bounces.
One NBA scout has suggested that Simmons, who has dealt with his share of mental fatigue over the last few years, would have benefitted from Butler’s aggression and his sticking around. He believes that Butler would have been so persistent and hard on Simmons that he would have had no choice but to improve and develop the mental strength required to succeed in the NBA, especially with the 76ers.
“The best thing that could have happened was that they kept Jimmy Butler, and Jimmy Butler just [expletived] him every day until he got better.”
– NBA Scout on Philadelphia and Ben Simmons
(Via @SteveBHoop ) pic.twitter.com/9Pt8wPDMrm
— NBACentral (@TheDunkCentral) April 26, 2022
“The best thing that could have happened was that they kept Jimmy Butler, and Jimmy Butler just [expletive] him every day until he got better.”
Butler would end up leaving for Miami, and it was believed that he left due to dissension with Ben Simmons. Butler and Simmons both find themselves on teams with a championship window, with Butler becoming the leader of the Miami Heat, and Simmons has joined the Brooklyn Nets and will aim to win an NBA championship with them next season.
One has to imagine the kind of work Simmons will have to put in to try and mentally and physically get ready for the new NBA season in October. His health may get better by then, but the fans and the media are only going to get harsher with time, now that Simmons spent an entire season on the sidelines despite there being no injury that ruled him out for that period.
