The Philadelphia 76ers will host the Brooklyn Nets on March 10 in one of the most anticipated regular-season matchups of the year. Exactly a month ago, the 76ers and the Nets made a trade to send James Harden to the 76ers in exchange for Ben Simmons, Seth Curry, and Andre Drummond with picks.
While Harden will be leading the 76ers on the court alongside Joel Embiid, Simmons will occupy a spot on the Nets bench as he is yet to be cleared to make his season debut. It has been a toxic season between Simmons and the 76ers, with former NBA champion Danny Green talking about how the team felt while dealing with the Simmons situation on Ryen Russillo’s podcast.
“We weren’t sure how it was going to go with Ben. We weren’t sure if he was going to play after what happened towards the end of the summer and the start of the season. We realise this is a waiting game and whether he’ll show up or wait to get traded.”
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Green went deeper into the matter when he spoke about the team having early struggles with injury and COVID, and the frustration around Ben being healthy and choosing not to be available for the team.
“It was frustrating. We came in with a positive mindset and started 8-2 and then we went 2-8 and it became really frustrating to have players be out due to COVID and injury and not have Ben. It was a tough time.”
Both Green and Simmons won’t be playing tonight due to their respective injury issues. While Green has struggled with health all year, it is unclear what is happening with Simmons. Hopefully, the former All-Star can work through his back injuries and grace the court with Brooklyn soon as the team desperately needs his defense and playmaking on the court.
