Philadelphia 76ers star Ben Simmons separated himself from the organization after a brutal second-round defeat ended Philly’s season last year.
Over the past few months, he has done everything he can to break ties with the franchise and has not played a single game for them this season despite being perfectly healthy.
While trade rumors have been flying around for a while now, there seems to be very little conversation going on at the executive level.
According to Marc Stein on the latest episode of his podcast, “Spotify Greenroom”, Ben Simmons did not really come up at all during the G League Showcase in Las Vegas, a venue that is usually buzzing with talks about the hottest players.
“I have to say just having spent three days in the gym with lots of NBA executives… 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.”
It really should be no surprise at all that trade talks involving Simmons are slow right now.
Last we saw of him, the guy was passing up open looks in an attempt to avoid taking any shots.
Couple that with his recent behavior and Daryl Morey’s ridiculously high price tag, and it becomes obvious why opposing GMs are not really interested in taking him in.
Simmons, 25, is an expert defender and playmaker who can make a difference on the court in a number of different ways. But until he gains some confidence offensively, and improves in his weakest areas, he’s going to have trouble getting what he wants.
