It hasn’t been the easiest couple of years for Nets star Ben Simmons. After an ugly breakup with the 76ers, he went to a crumbling Nets team and proceeded to miss the entire rest of the reason for reasons that are still mostly unknown.
This summer, Ben has tried his best to put the past behind him and look ahead to a brighter and hopefully more successful future. So far, fans have made that difficult.
Just earlier this week, Simmons found himself going viral online for shooting an airball during a live Nets practice.
Kyrie Irving Offers Some Crucial Advice To Ben Simmons
With the internet trolling him again, one of his teammates, Kyrie Irving, took it upon himself to offer some advice to the young playmaker. Here’s what he said:
“I’m no child on the internet anymore,” Irving told ESPN. “I grew up in the internet days, I think you can appreciate that of just when technology hit the boom and we didn’t expect that social media would take over the whole entire platform basis of where we get everything. It is a one-place shop where you are legitimately taking your eyes shopping on whatever the algorithm throws your way. So, if we think about it on that level, I think the nerds can appreciate that, how much that changes us all.
“For him, he’s grown up in Australia, there’s not much of a — I don’t want to disrespect his upbringing, but I don’t know if there’s a space where there’s a melting pot full of diversity and races coming together talking about issues as politics. And it’s just one world that you can honestly say what you feel. And not every country has shared that same freedom so for me telling him not only just ‘F all of it,’ but you got to be able to deal with it. You got to be able to face it.”
Of course, as a frequent target of bullying by fans and the media, Irving knows exactly what it’s like to face the music, and he knows that it just comes with the territory of stardom.
When any athlete is out there performing, they can’t worry about what the fans will be saying. They have to focus strictly on what’s happening on the court, and that’s exactly what Ben Simmons needs to do as he prepares for the upcoming season.
