2022-23 Team Developments: News / Trades / Free Agents / Rumors

lol harden and embiid together. that's going to go well...

 

Yeah, Stephen A said that's what he heard out of Philly that Morey wants Harden. Given he's a former Philly writer, I'm sure he has some sources there still.

I heard Morey say on the radio today that this could drag out for 4 years. If he doesn't get the impact player he wants, he simply won't move him. You can't let this drag out this season, much less four years. The team will fire Morey long before that because this circus is bad for the team and worse the longer in drags out.

 

This is like a guy that put a lot of money into a company in the stock market that now is down 40% and threatening to go much lower if he stays in. I absolutely love it. Karma’s a b****.

 

Love that Morey thinks everything is a game.

 

Morey absolutely doesn’t believe this will drag out even beyond this trade deadline. He’s just casting out hallow threats to try to intimidate Ben.

 

If this is true, Morey is not just an idiot, he is an a******!!

 

Why should Morey get blamed? He didn’t chose to not develop a jumpshot or some confidence to shoot in the playoffs, and he wasn’t the one that threw a teammate under the bus when they got eliminated from the playoffs.

As far as I’m concerned he is just trying to get good value for an asset. Good on him for sticking to his guns, Ben Simmons is entitled and thinks he can collect his max contract, not play and get traded wherever he wants.

 

I honestly don't understand the opinions here.

Ben is a spoiled brat, NEVER developed ANY part of his game, has a max contract and can't shoot the ball and absolutely COST the series against the Hawks. He have never shown any capacity as a leader or someone you can trust to bring to the next level. The team should have dealt with it better, I agree, but it's not like they didn't have reasons to.

The thing is, the sooner Ben realizes that he can only go out if he starts playing basketball, the sooner he lives.

I also like it from a managerial view, players are going lengths to prove they run the league. Ben and Kyrie are costing Millions to the franchise

 

because he's supposedly a great manager, but he picks favorites and alienates most of his employees all the time? make no mistake: he made this bed. just like he made the bed in houston, lit it on fire, and left town before he could get his proper blame. the boss needs to care about the good of his organization over his own reputation, and morey's never gotten that.

as for simmons, i've said it before: his detractors keep saying he's terrible, never improved, his fault they lost, etc. great. then trade him for pennies. i mean, he sucks, right? you'd win it all if not for him. so move him out. that's all he wants. but you've got to talk out of both sides of your mouth: he's the problem, give us all your goods! simmons's latest behavior is petulant, but they had months to move him, and he sat quietly during that time.

it's funny that a similar thing (on a much smaller scale) is happening with bagley in sac (another terribly run organization). sure, bagley sucks. so why not move him then? "because value!" WHAT? if you value him, you play him. this is basketball, not the stock market.

i'm on both players' side here. firmly.

man, i would hate showing up to work knowing i was going to be blamed for organization-wide failures regardless of what i did. i might...not want to do anything.

 

BEN IN THE FOURTH QUARTER: Simmons has taken just one 4th-quarter shot in the last four games of the Hawks series. He’s 1-for-1 from the field in 27 minutes on the court. In the entire postseason, he’s 5-for-6 from the field in the fourth quarter in 63 minutes. That’s one shot every 10 ½ minutes. Here’s a look at Simmons’ 4th-quarter shooting from the field during the 2021 postseason:

Game 1 vs. Wizards: 0-for-1 [9 minutes]
Game 2 vs. Wizards: DNP
Game 3 vs. Wizards: DNP
Game 4 vs. Wizards: 0-for-0 [7 minutes]
Game 5 vs. Wizards: 2-for-2 [8 minutes]
Game 1 vs. Hawks: 2-for-2 [12 minutes]
Game 2 vs. Hawks: 0-for-0 [3 minutes]
Game 3 vs. Hawks: 1-for-1 [7 minutes]
Game 4 vs. Hawks: 0-for-0 [8 minutes]
Game 5 vs. Hawks: 0-for-0 [9 minutes]


FREE THROWS
Simmons is enduring one of the worst postseasons in NBA history when it comes to foul shooting. He was 4-for-14 Wednesday, leaving him 22-for-67 this postseason for 32.8 percent. That’s 6th-worst in NBA history in a postseason (minimum 50 attempts) behind Shaq twice, Ben Wallace twice and Wilt once. Simmons is 12-for-39 in the Hawks series for 30.8 percent. That’s 4th-worst in NBA history in any series (minimum 30 attempts) behind Shaq twice, Wallace once and Wilt once. His career percentage is down to 52.1 percent, 7th-worst in NBA history among the 616 players in NBA history who’ve attempted at least 100 foul shots in the postseason.

Max player.
Give me a break.

 

great. TRADE HIM THEN.

several teams made good faith offers that could have excised the albatross.

btw, if we were philly, i wonder what folks in the organization would have been saying after russ's game 1. but we're not. thank god.

 

What offers? Can you elaborate?

Ben is in Philly for years, they "trusted the process" for a long time. Embiid developed a 3pt shot, defense and consistency. Ben is the same player he always was with severe flaws in his game that NEVER improved. Even Ball looks like a shooter now.
Can't compare it to Russ, Ben was never criticized in the beginning, you're being dishonest with that comparison

 

the only people being dishonest are the ones claiming that simmons isn't worth his salary AND that morey should be holding out for the moon. you don't get to have that both ways, and neither does morey.

i'm not going to dig it up, but multiple sources outlined credible offers and reported morey demanding a young impact player + multiple first rounders. we talked about it here at the time. it was after that that simmons upped the ante with the holdout stuff. makes sense to me.

 

I don't get why you want to polarize the discussion. It's not either you defend Ben or "Simmons isn't worth the salary and Morey should be holding out for the moon". I don't think anyone here said it.

Ben is a great player. Is young, great athleticism, great size, strong, long, very good in open court as he is able to get the rebound and run the court to a easy dunk or assist, that's key in a NBA where everyone wants pace. He's also probably the best non-big defender in the NBA, able to guard 1-5, pretty much a unicorn in that sense. That makes him a max player. And also a big trade asset.
But being a max player is not just getting the bag. It means that you need to lead the team to success, be a role model in the roster and drive your teammates and yourself to being better. And is also being accountable for every loss, every mistake and every roadblock.
He has been demonstrating that he is none of that. He's weak, inconsistent and fears big moments. He's one of the worst FT shooters when is game lives of attacking the basket (hence getting calls). It's even worse because he is incapable of shooting the basket from 10 feet, making defenses adjust and taking lines to attack the basket. Everyone sees it and knows it for years, and he have never shown a glimpse of wanting to find alternatives, to work on his game and make defenses think twice. The league is full of players who weren't good shooters or FT specialists that developed that side of the game or found alternatives in order to be more successful. Kidd, Rondo, Lebron, Howard, Giannis, Green...hell, centers like Brook, Vuc, Valanciunas are hitting 3s every game. Ben didn't do anything like it.

So yes, he has great talent and everything to be a generational player in the league but so far has failed.
At the same time, Doc and Embiid did bad in being vocal about it and the organization didn't coped well with the situation. Nonetheless, they have a generational talent in their books for 4 years, knowing that if he clicks and develops a shot and confidence, he can play a big part in a championship team, so it's just natural that he is not traded for a bag of chips and they want a fair return that allows them to continue to be a top 3 team in the East. The organization have been making moves to achieve success so it's only natural they demand the absolute best from one of their max players.

If I was Morey I wouldn't cave. He knows Ben's ceiling and cannot lose him for anyone that is not a top30 player. And the way Ben is behaving when he doesn't communicate with the team and never allowed the situation to be resolved (let's not forget that Embiid, Doc and so on were going to travel to LA to speak with him and he refused to receive them), makes it even harder for Morey to soften his stance. They all made mistakes so they all need to compromise. It looks that the organization wanted to do that at some point, but Ben never did the same.



In regards to the trades you mention, whitout names it's just rumours and no point of discussing things that are not real

 

you said you didn't understand the opinions, so i restated.

the above is a better response, but i still think it's a lot of double-talk. anyway, no way i'd want to work for that organization after how they handled that (and how doc, morey, and embiid have handled most of their careers, tbh). just a bunch of finger pointers. all this over a 14ppg scorer not taking over 4th quarters. he takes 10 shots a game on average--why would he take more than 2 in a given 4th quarter? why did that become of a metric of interest given his role on the team? why was one play blamed for a team-wide disappointment? because team leadership is bad at all levels.

as for details, here's one example:

sixers wanted mccollum, 3 1sts, 3 swaps for simmons from blazers. that's good-faith negotiating?

https://nba.nbcsports.com/2021/10/0...ith-three-first-round-picks-three-pick-swaps/

 

I am usually on the player's side, but I am undecided on this situation so far.

If a player has multiple years left on his contract, should he be allowed to get a trade whenever he wants, or to choose to not play but still demand to get paid? And then be totally disruptive if he does not get those things?

I am not saying management has done nothing wrong. I am just asking, in general, even without the specifics of the Simmons case, is the above behavior okay, and something we are fine with? If so, then players can and should demand trades a lot more often. If not, then it should be okay (even if not ideal) for management to play hardball (even if it's disruptive to the team), right?

 

some insights on the whole fiasco. Not a bad listen.

 

Everyone is to blame for a slew of different reasons.



That's the key. They're all responsible for the current s*** show. BUT dragging this out and keeping him there won't increase his value or improve chemistry with Philly. Trade him to Portland for CJ and get it over with. Simmons gets a restart at a natural playing position, he's not a PG and it's ridiculous no one has figured that out yet. He can cover for Dame's defensive shortcomings and is a decent play to get him to stay. Philly gets a great fit next to Joel, I think CJ is a perfect fit there with the current perimeter guys they have.

Both those teams can make a decent run if they do it sooner than later. Each day there are fewer options, not more. GS and Indy were options and now they're out. Morey needs to stop waiting for this offer that isn't out there. He's not getting a top 10 player for Simmons. And he's probably not getting 6 picks.

 

Based on that report I assume that Ben is playing until December