Ben Simmons had not played in more than a month and it didn’t come as much surprise over the weekend when Jacque Vaughn and company hinted that he wouldn’t return this season. It’s been an up-and-down (mostly down) season for Simmons who showed flashes at times but never came all that close to returning to his previous levels on the court. It’s a significant issue for the Nets going forward, especially where his contract is concerned.
Simmons was working his way back from back surgery in the off season, but he never seemed to get healthy and obviously had additional issues in the short-term. Where do Simmons and the Nets go from here and is there any chance he ever gets back close to a superstar level?
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15 Comments
Y’all shoulda have traded for Myles Turner or Mo Bamba when y’all had the chance. Ben needs a big that can stretch the floor on offense to open up driving lanes for him to attack.
Wouldn’t be surprised if he doesn’t wanna play for Brooklyn anymore
Well at least he now has a clear diagnosis that can be treated. The players & many fans love him. ❤ I hope Ben knows that the antagonist here's been social media, random mean folks, not the Nets.
You said going forward, Ben is going to be an "after thought", and then you said the remainder of his contract is something we're going to have to deal with. I don't think he's going to be an after thought as long as long as we're playing him. No sensible GM is going to trade for him, probably, under any circumstances. I think we'll stick with him, in in hopes that his mental and physical condition improve enough for him to return to the rotation before his contract expire.
It's humorous that so much of this pod cast is about Ben Simmons and nothing was mentioned about the history of how we acquired him. It's old water under the bridge but I think its worth reviewing a few things, that's probably, puzzling more fans than me. Players have to pass a physical before they get traded. How did Ben pass the physical and had a mental and physical collapse shortly after his arrival in Brooklyn? When the ideal of trading Harden for Ben first came up, the Nets was, vehemently, against it. If Sean Marks hadn't made that trade, Harden would've been off the books instead of Ben being on the books.
This particular injury takes 18mths to heal from surgery. A couple of decent reporters have actually spoken to surgeons and all have said they same thing. Pretty sure you had a guest on the program who said 18mths and the players 2nd year stats go off the charts. Yep his head is blown up (most likely because of the pain for multiple years ) and he doesn't shoot like everyone expects him to but he also can't jump right now which is why he isn't looking at the rim. You don't go from all the accolades in his first few years to crap over a passed up dunk. As an introvert, He shows up to nearly every game. He's not your hype guy, just a guy who upset everyone by saying i want a divorce from the 76ers and acted like a 25 year old does (without thinking about the consequences of today's social media hell )
How is it that you could get through an entire pod cast, about Ben Simmons, and not blame GM Sean Marks, for making the most disastrous trade decisions in the history of the league, including the one for Ben? One who have to be a pure Sean Marks apologist to overlook that. Those that do have no credibility, in my opinion.
dont lose your marbles for a player more like poorzingis than he is KD he’ll come back this year or next wont matter in NBA history
Just got to be patient.
If we are realistically looking at Ben Simmons future: many people want to trade him along with a prospect like Cam Thomas and up to three or four first round draft picks for possible available all star players such as Zach Lavine Trae young Shai G Alexander Jaylen brown and Brandon Ingram.
But given his health and financial contract Brooklyn could focus on building around their core and trading him to a team in limbo that has some solid role players such as the Charlotte hornets:
Charlotte hornets: Ben Simmons Cam Thomas and three first round draft picks.
Brooklyn Nets: Gordon Hayward Kelly Oubre Jr and PJ Washington.
This could be a very beneficial trade for building solid depth around Brooklyn core. Gordon Hayward whose dealt with injuries but when healthy is a balanced scorer who can start and add a good scoring punch.
Kelly Oubre Jr still has lots of potential to take another leap and can knock down threes defend and make his own buckets.
Pj Washington meanwhile has the defensive versatility factor to play different positions add some rebounding and and provide some pop off the bench.
This realistic Ben Simmons trade gets his contract off Brooklyn table and they add a starter and two solid role players.
Ben is going to be fine. He’s injured.
Doug…I am glad you said it clearly multiple times…”Ben Simmons is not getting traded.” Any GM that would trade for him at this point in time would be guilty of negligence and malpractice. The best we can hope for is that he gets healthy at some point before his contract expires.
Couple things on Ben:
First can we now say at the Harden deal with the Sixers was terrible and should’ve never been done. There is no question that the potential for Harden walking and the nets getting nothing in return would have been a better outcome than being stuck with Ben Simmons and then also Seth Curry, who is either been hurt, or had issues defensively as well. Let’s say Harden dogged it for the remainder of the season he would’ve probably irreparably damaged his reputation throughout the league kind of similar to Kyrie has done and even if they wanted to trade harden, they should’ve done similar to what they did with KD and held the sixers to the fire and demanded Maxey in the trade. Let’s remember had Harden hit free agency. Sixers probably would’ve had to clear a lot of capspace from their roster to sign Harden, potentially having to gut the roster in order to do so because by the summer nobody would’ve traded for Ben Simmons. Instead, we let Harden off the hook and we let the Sixers off the hook.
Second, I wish the issues with Ben Simmons, or simply about him getting healthy because of a back issue. I wish that was the only issue but unfortunately that isn’t the case. When you pass up open layups under the basket that has nothing to do with your back, I’ve seen old man at the rec league make layups and they’re not 6”10 either. I’ve seen old men at the rec league with kneepads the size of their heads on each knee hit free throws at better than 40%. The biggest problem with Ben Simmons that needs to be resolved is that he’s scared to fail and when you play scared these are the results. So, even if he gets completely healthy, if his mind is not in the game, it won’t matter.
Third, Doug made a point about Ben Simmons having a bunch of assists that is a clear example of why not all assists are created equal half of those Ben Simmons assist are him giving hand offs on screens up at the three-point line that’s not Jason Kidd court vision or Jokic level. It’s like basic center handoff action and when you do that every single time you get onto the offensive side of the court you’re gonna have a couple of assists especially when you’re playing with Kyrie Irving and Durant. Further, we got to stop talking about how successful we saw Ben Simmons in spurts because it’s pretty clear that everyone was successful because they played with KD. So you can throw those stats out of the window because as soon as KD went down Simmons whatever you had left became even worse and so did everybody else on the roster. When you play with a player like KD, it covers up almost all of your weaknesses and Simmons has a ton. So moving forward it’s more important to look at. How does Simmons fit when you don’t have Kayde and it doesn’t look very good because he doesn’t shoot and other teams, know it and exploit. So that means once he comes back, you can’t play him with Claxton or DFS. At this point his career is he actually better at playing point guard then Spencer Dinwiddie no way, so what’s his role?
Doug, if this was just an injury issues a lot more players would have come out publicly supporting him. You haven’t heard a pin drop from almost any player in that regard not then Patty Mills. In the very beginning you had Seth Curry in the off-season, and you had Kyrie, Irving support him to the media, but that pretty much stopped immediately as they got into the season and he was a non-factor.
No player since the trades of significance has come out in support of Ben Simmons even after the trade no Spencer, Dinwiddie, or Bridges or Johnson or Claxton. And we’ve heard Dinwiddie come out and support of DFS in his struggles we’ve heard players come out in support of Joe Harris and his struggles we’ve heard coaches come out and support of Seth Curry and his injury issues. But when it comes to Ben Simmons, everyone’s as quiet as a church mouse.
And I believe that’s because this is more than just Ben Simmons having a back issue and that being the primary problem here it seems the primary problem is mental and because talking about someone’s mental health is a very very touchy subject as it should be people just remain silent about it instead Which is a vote of no confidence.
I believe if Ben Simmons has truly people who have his best interest at heart. He should take time away from the game use the injury, take a medical retirement and step away from the game for a while.
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