When you’ve been talking about sports as long as FS1’s Colin Cowherd has, you’re bound to dish out some takes that age horribly. Cowherd dished out arguably his worst take back in 2018 on the Herd when he boldly declared that LeBron James was free to go away, as the NBA now had Ben Simmons.
“You know I love LeBron, I’ve talked about him incessantly for a decade,” Cowherd said. “I still think he is absolutely remarkable, but for the first time in 10 to 12 years, I look at the NBA, which I’ve watched for four decades, and I say this now with Ben Simmons, ‘Hey LeBron, we are good, bro. You can go. You don’t have to. You can hang around. Still great, but you can go. We’re all good here.’”
Cowherd hadn’t really addressed this take in all these years until now. During an appearance on the Club 520 Podcast, he was asked if there was one take he wished he could take back, and co-host Jeff Teague hilariously brought up this one.
“He made All-NBA,” Cowherd said.
Co-host Bishop “B Hen” Henn had Cowherd’s back. He felt the veteran analyst went a bit crazy, but Simmons’ stock was rising at the time.
Cowherd dished out his hot take after Simmons’ playoff debut for the Philadelphia 76ers. He had 17 points (5-13 FG), nine rebounds, 14 assists, and two steals in a 130-113 win over the Miami Heat in Game 1 of their first-round series in 2018. While that was an excellent showing, Teague, who was playing in the NBA at the time, found it to be ridiculous.
“Man, I played against him,” Teague said. “I said, ‘Wait, have y’all not seen LeBron? Hell no.'”
Simmons was a very highly rated youngster (No. 1 pick of the 2016 NBA Draft) and had been compared to James before entering the league. He had an excellent rookie season that saw him win ROTY, but this was still an absurd take. As Teague said, had people not seen just how good James, who was playing for the Cleveland Cavaliers at the time, was?
“I got a little hot that day,” Cowherd admitted. “… I overheated on the air.”
As for why Cowherd went as far as he did with that take, he claims he was going by information provided to him by his college basketball sources.
“They’re like, it’s Magic if Magic played defense,” Cowherd said. “They’re like, ‘Magic couldn’t shoot either.’ They’re like, ‘He’s Magic, but he’s maybe a better athlete, and he and he plays real defense.’ What people forget, he comes into the league, and you’re like, he’s 6’9”, he’s kind of a rim protector, he doesn’t need to shoot, he scores mostly at the rim.
“You know how Jokic is like a point center?” Cowherd continued. “He was like a center point… Nobody matched up with him. And then all of a sudden, once again, just like podcasting, he didn’t love the game. He loved what the game provided, but he didn’t really love the game. And then he had an injury, then he lost his confidence, and you’re like, ‘Wow, this is bad.'”
Simmons was extremely talented. He made three All-Star, one All-NBA, and two All-Defensive teams and finished runner-up for DPOY in 2021. He had one big flaw, though, which, of course, was that he couldn’t shoot. You kept thinking a day would come when the Australian would develop an outside shot and start dominating. He never did.
Simmons’ downfall began during the 2021 NBA Playoffs. He infamously passed up a wide-open dunk in the closing stages of Game 7 of the Eastern Conference Semifinals against the Atlanta Hawks because he was afraid of getting fouled.
The 76ers would end up losing, and that would be the final game he played for the franchise. Simmons wanted to be traded after getting blamed and sat out at the start of the 2021-22 season. He’d eventually be traded to the Brooklyn Nets in February 2022, but didn’t play the rest of the season due to a back injury.
Those back issues never quite went away, and Simmons was a shadow of his former self when he returned. He became a free agent in 2025 and is now out of the NBA. Simmons is currently looking to recover fully from his back issues and is busy pursuing his passion for fishing. Will we see him in the NBA again? Time will tell.
James, meanwhile, just wrapped up his record-breaking 23rd season in the NBA with the Los Angeles Lakers. The 41-year-old might end up playing a 24th season as well.
