Enough B.S. Suspend Ben Simmons indefinitely. | Marcus Hayes
You can’t trade Simmons at this moment. He has zero value. Let him stew, make him return, play him at power forward, reestablish his worth, and then ship him off.
Enough.
I’ve had enough. We’ve had enough. Even the Sixers have had enough of Ben Simmons, hereafter known as B.S.
Enough B.S. Suspend him indefinitely. Let the players’ union fight it. Who cares?
Let Klutch Sports complain. Let it threaten to not do business with you. It doesn’t matter. Rich Paul, LeBron James’ personal lieutenant and Klutch’s chief, can leak whatever he wants to whoever he wants. This garbage cannot stand.
» READ MORE: Sixers kick Ben Simmons out of practice, suspend him for conduct detrimental to the team
The Sixers can’t trade Simmons at this moment. He has zero value. Let him stew, then make him return, play him at power forward, reestablish his worth, and then ship him off.
Simmons never has been worth Damian Lillard, or Bradley Beal. Now, he’s not worth CJ McCollum.
Heck, he’s not worth CJ McCollum’s jockstrap.
Kick him out for good. Kick him out until he ceases to pout.
Doc Rivers kicked the disgruntled point guard out of practice Tuesday and suspended him for one game for conduct detrimental to the team. Simmons was not engaging in practice as a player should. He was dogging it. Kick rocks, kid.
It’s Terrell Owens 2.0.
This happened on the eve of the Sixers’ opener at New Orleans. Simmons could not be more of a distraction if he secreted game plans to each opponent and gave Karl-Anthony Towns the password to Joel Embiid’s Twitter account.
Rivers is generally Simmons’ most committed apologist. Now, though, Doc has jumped off the “Treasure Ben Simmons” train, of which he was the conductor last season. He already demeaned himself defending the NBA’s most reluctant shooter and its most narcissistic star — and that’s saying something.
Hit Simmons where it hurts him most: his wallet.
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The Sixers have already paid Simmons $8.25 million of his $33 million salary due him this season, but withheld the $8.25 million lump sum due Oct. 1 since he was holding out, hoping to force a low-value trade. Assuming they didn’t pay him that lump sum, they now owe him $24.75 million. A one-game suspension should cost him about $300,000. That’s not enough.
Suspend him for all 82 games if necessary. It’ll cost him almost $25 million, including the $1.4 million in fines he accrued in his 14-day training camp holdout. He’ll start to feel that more and more when the mortgage payments on his $17.5 million mansion outside of Los Angeles come due.
Every player who defended him — looking at you, Danny Green, Matisse Thybulle, and, until lately, Joel Embiid — should understand now Simmons was not worth their breath. They should understand now that his selfishness extended far past the basketball court, where he refused to shoot jump shots, refused to try three-pointers, and, in Game 7 of the Eastern Conference semifinals against the Hawks, refused an easy dunk late in the game because he’s afraid to shoot free throws.
Because, you know, he looks bad doing it.
Because, you know, we don’t know basketball, as Rivers insultingly told us twice during that series.
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Because, you know, he’s so good at everything else that shooting doesn’t matter, as Rivers told us last season.
Enough.
We’d had enough of T.O. in 2005, when his shenanigans led Andy Reid to send him and his b.s. home.
Enough of this B.S., and his b.s.
We knew Simmons had issues on the court after the 2018 conference semis, when the Celtics refused to guard him on the perimeter, and he made several poor choices, but he was a rookie. You hoped his offensive inclinations would change.
They did not.
He ignored the Sixers’ requests to work with their shooting coach and first hired his own specialist, and then his brother, to work with him.
They failed.
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Off the court, Simmons does not engage with his teammates. He surrounds himself in a bubble of friends and family who offer no criticism; sycophants who coddle him and encourage his insouciance.
He has been the same player forever.
He has been the same person forever.
His conduct has been detrimental to this team for years.
The only punishment that fits, the only recourse the team has, is to bench Simmons until he starts to earn his money.
It’s the only language B.S. speaks.