76ers Fine Ben Simmons For Not Traveling With Team On Six-Game Road Trip

[CobraCommander]

Sixers are just bullying Simmons at this point.

Having said that, Simmons needs to stop this wishy-washy mental health BS and make a decision here.

1) Fully comply to the letters of his contract and let your actions on the court speak for you. He obviously can't get himself up for games, I don't think it'll take much effort (if at all) to underperform enough to force Sixers to accept reality in terms of return value. Not saying he has to throw games or anything like that but saying he's messed up enough that it'll naturally happen once he's out there going through the motions. Then Sixers will finally stop asking for the moon and accept lesser players like they should have long time ago. This IMO is the fastest route to get what he wants and he doesn't lose any money. Maybe he suffers some humiliation out there but it's way past the point where he should worry about that with his reputation getting dragged through the mud already and him coming out looking weaker and weaker. At least, he has enough years left on his current contract to be able to build his value back up once traded.

2) Or take a stand, go back to LA, and be willing to lose lots of money. It'll be harder and may take longer but eventually, Sixers are going to have to accept reality as well or risk wasting away Embiid's prime. I personally wouldn't recommend this route but this would be the healthier approach than what he's doing now IMO.

If he keeps going like this, eventually, he's gonna get dragged out there where 1) will still probably play out but he would have wasted all that time and money for nothing.

How are they bullying him?

They pay him to play ball. he said he js mentally injured and they offered a doc. Ben said no to the teams offer of help.

The fines are recouping their losses. Can you imagine if Ben played but the team didn’t pay him because the owner was having a mental health issue? Everyone would have a way to work through that right...


Ben is on a guaranteed contract and he either plays, proves injury with their doc or lose money....the 76ers can’t bend on this for the sake of the league.

Next thing you know - team loses 4 in a row and Luka or Jalen green want out for mental health reasons....do you get how bad this issue is for the sanctity of sports and the ability of the league to manage their labor pool?

[CobraCommander]

10 years from now...
Ben Simmons sues Rich Paul for losing out on millions and his basketball career.

Doubt that. Simmons is making his own choices. It's up to Paul to support his client but he surely didn't recommend his course of action (and not without any legal protections).

Naw he sueing rich Paul. I have never seen someone with less leverage act so reckless. The sixers have 100% of the power here.

If Ben offered to void his contract 100% and hit the open market I would believe Ben was sincere. Notice Kyrie doesn’t care...he on principle period...Ben wants his money, not follow rules, not play and get traded

[tigerae]

I think the NBPA and league needs to get involved soon here and force a trade to be completed. Just trade him already. There's just no way I see this one resolve it self in a way where the Sixers increase the trade value of Simmons and they get more in a trade. I would trade him for Wall or CJ or whatever the best offer on the table is at this time. Better deals will just not happen.

What's the point for the Sixers not trading him besides likely kicking themselves for not taking the better offers they were getting before the hold out when they were shopping him around? They just won't get those offers anymore. At this point I would be concerned for Ben's safety at home games anyway. Philly fans are something else to say the least. It is plain moronic to even think that somehow Ben playing will give teams amnesia and make them offer more. They know he wants out and that the Sixers want to trade him.

It would be better to allow him to work out for potential trade partners. That would be the only way I see a team be willing to offer a little more if Ben really impresses at a private work out. Similar to how they allow coaches interview for jobs maybe, if something like this is even allowed by the NBA.

I just don't understand. The team, coaches and even some players like Embiid didn't think highly of his skill set last year so why would they feel they deserve a superstar in return? Here I have what I feel like is a rock and no matter what I tried to do with it, it still remained a rock. But hey, give me your diamond because just maybe you can turn my rock in to a diamond, too.

This is an extremely naive POV

There are dozens of examples over the years where msg board comments like this eat crow later

One small example:

Feb 2017, the weekend before the trade deadline. Vlade's Kings are 1 game out of the 8 seed in the West. Boogie Cousins is averaging 28 pts, 11 reb, 5 ast, and almost 1.5 both steals and blocks, while shooting 36% on 3P and 77% FT on 10 attempts. RealGM posts several wiretap article that morning that "The Pelicans are interested in Cousins"

There are dozens of posts like this: https://forums.realgm.com/boards/viewtopic.php?f=415&t=1527967
Hundreds of comments like this:
"The Pelicans have nothing to give up with enough value to get Cousins."
"Go home Pelicans you're drunk."
"I just don't see how this could EVER happen."
Some of the comments are just laughing or sarcasm

Hours later, of course, Cousins is heading to New Orleans for Tyreke Evans and Buddy Hield

The response from the skeptical above was almost universal: "well I wasn't wrong, Vlade is just stupid"

And that's where your fallacy is -- you can't imagine that there is a GM out there willing to do something stupid. GM's make awful moves every season to try and change "something" (anything) in futile attempts to save their jobs.

There is ALWAYS a Billy King, David Kahn, Vlade Divac, Isiah Thomas, Rob Babock, Wes Unseld etc... You may not know who it is yet, but this person is out there among the 30 teams just waiting for a chance to do something dumb.

Why would the NBAPA get involved? Simmons created this problem for himself. He can solve it himself. Or he can sit and wait until either Morey gives up, the owner gets involved and forces that, OR that stupid GM makes himself known and the Sixers surprise you.

All NBA front offices are not rational, let alone equal.

Amin Elhassan (former Suns' scout) just said this week on SXM NBA: "Our biggest mistake in Phoenix was not realizing how dumb other teams were." -- talking about things like Haseem Thabeet drafted ahead of Steph Curry ("We were arguing if we should take Thabeet in the second ROUND if he fell to us")

Could Morey be wrong? Sure, but he's not wrong that getting "just some value" for Simmons doesn't help his job security anymore than "no" value. He's got get serious value here or he's effed in the long run anyway.

I think you're confusing the Cousins trade. Cousins was the one disgruntled at the time and hard to deal with (somewhat like Simmons in this situation). He was a hot head and a huge gamble for teams. Not to mention it really didn't work out well with Cousins in the long run. In this case, Simmons is a big gamble as well. The most Morey will get is a trade like the Cousins trade, players like Evans and Hield. Or maybe someone like Wall who is overpaid but could possibly be a great help for the Sixers if he stays healthy and is at least 70 or 80% of what he was prior to his injuries. That is a big IF though. Maybe even a Kyrie trade could happen if the Nets can't figure out how to get him to play, though rumors are that he may retire if he gets traded. Question is does Morey and the Sixers want to gamble on Wall or Kyrie, if they are available. If not, I just don't see other trades. Lillard, if he decides to move, will unlikely choose the Sixers and the Blazers would want to blow it all up and get picks, not take back 35 million in cap.

[dougthonus]

How are they bullying him?

If he has legitimate mental health issues, I can see where it would feel like that to him.

They pay him to play ball. he said he js mentally injured and they offered a doc. Ben said no to the teams offer of help.

He has to see a doc, I don't know that he is required to see their doc. However, this is something for Ben / NBPA to resolve if his claim is legitimate and if mental health issues are covered by the league.

Maybe the 76ers are within their rights to do exactly what they're doing. However, maybe they aren't. I don't know if anyone on this forum really understand what mental health absences are or are not covered as part of his player contract, but a lot of people seem to assume what they feel is right is how the contract is written.

Not saying you are one of these guys, just saying it's certainly possible that the language could side with either guy.

Next thing you know - team loses 4 in a row and Luka or Jalen green want out for mental health reasons....do you get how bad this issue is for the sanctity of sports and the ability of the league to manage their labor pool?

Clearly there needs to be some meaningful criteria to claim injury due to mental health. However, people said the same thing about the labor pool for all kinds of reasons in the past (free agency, guaranteed deals, etc... ). The rules will end up where they end up based on both sides power to negotiate them. If this issue became widespread, then I'd imagine the owners would make it a point to negotiate next go around. Will be interesting how much this situation moves the needle of those discussions or whether people view it as an outlier. I could see that going either way.

[CobraCommander]

How are they bullying him?

If he has legitimate mental health issues, I can see where it would feel like that to him.

They pay him to play ball. he said he js mentally injured and they offered a doc. Ben said no to the teams offer of help.

He has to see a doc, I don't know that he is required to see their doc. However, this is something for Ben / NBPA to resolve if his claim is legitimate and if mental health issues are covered by the league.

Maybe the 76ers are within their rights to do exactly what they're doing. However, maybe they aren't. I don't know if anyone on this forum really understand what mental health absences are or are not covered as part of his player contract, but a lot of people seem to assume what they feel is right is how the contract is written.

Not saying you are one of these guys, just saying it's certainly possible that the language could side with either guy.

Next thing you know - team loses 4 in a row and Luka or Jalen green want out for mental health reasons....do you get how bad this issue is for the sanctity of sports and the ability of the league to manage their labor pool?

Clearly there needs to be some meaningful criteria to claim injury due to mental health. However, people said the same thing about the labor pool for all kinds of reasons in the past (free agency, guaranteed deals, etc... ). The rules will end up where they end up based on both sides power to negotiate them. If this issue became widespread, then I'd imagine the owners would make it a point to negotiate next go around. Will be interesting how much this situation moves the needle of those discussions or whether people view it as an outlier. I could see that going either way.

Nothing you are saying I disagree with per say, let’s just say my back ground informs me to say, if you make a claim and want to still get paid by most companies, they have the right to challenge your claim by having their doc look at you.

Ben is playing this as if he can claim mental health and dictate what’s best for his mental health yet keep his existing contract. They are preventing him from quitting basketball for life. It’s just if he wants to play in the nba he has to honor their contract. That’s fair?

[MartinToVaught]

Sixers are just bullying Simmons at this point.

Please. The Sixers have had the patience of a saint with Simmons' BS over the years. Now he's just outright violating his wildly overpaid contract that he chose to sign. Philly has every right to hold him accountable.

[MitchB3]

What the Sixers are doing at this point is hurting themselves.

[Appostis]

Did you start with mental health being your concern or did you simply pivot to it when your bill didn't take?

Pathetic. Guy should be banned from the NBA for the length of his contract for this trash.

[Temuhjan]

Sixers are toying with BS while waiting for the trade restrictions to lift on Dec 15.

The obvious trade is BS and Danny Green for Sexton, Osman and Love. Probably no pick attached

[GMjobZK]

The owner needs to step in. He must have forgotten how long “The Process” took. Now they’re a contender and dealing with this unprofessional nonsense? If I’m the owner… I’m firing Morey and sending a stern message to Doc or he can get the axe too. Hiring a new GM and trading Simmons so we can move forward as a Championship contender. Morey is a recent hire on top of that and has done nothing but cause a complete ****. 100% Simmons caused this , Doc stirred it up with his comments, but now the “boss” GM is not doing his due diligence for the best interest of the team. Bottom line.

Fire Morey. Lol. He makes 10M per year guaranteed with 4 years remaining.
Fire Doc? Lol. He also makes 10M per year guaranteed with 4 years remaining.

Your "solution" is for the owner to spend 80M + excluding the additional 20-40M it will take to replace them with DOWNGRADES.

A "stern" message indeed. Threatening them with free money. LOL.

Fire Morey yes , Fire Doc likely no but that’s the price he’ll have to pay to right the ship.

[Lockdown504090]

The owner needs to step in. He must have forgotten how long “The Process” took. Now they’re a contender and dealing with this unprofessional nonsense? If I’m the owner… I’m firing Morey and sending a stern message to Doc or he can get the axe too. Hiring a new GM and trading Simmons so we can move forward as a Championship contender. Morey is a recent hire on top of that and has done nothing but cause a complete ****. 100% Simmons caused this , Doc stirred it up with his comments, but now the “boss” GM is not doing his due diligence for the best interest of the team. Bottom line.

Fire Morey. Lol. He makes 10M per year guaranteed with 4 years remaining.
Fire Doc? Lol. He also makes 10M per year guaranteed with 4 years remaining.

Your "solution" is for the owner to spend 80M + excluding the additional 20-40M it will take to replace them with DOWNGRADES.

A "stern" message indeed. Threatening them with free money. LOL.

Fire Morey yes , Fire Doc likely no but that’s the price he’ll have to pay to right the ship.

on top of that, how can they trade simmons for what his value is rn and still be a contender, that doesnt make sense.

[TimeisIllmatic]

Sixers are toying with BS while waiting for the trade restrictions to lift on Dec 15.

The obvious trade is BS and Danny Green for Sexton, Osman and Love. Probably no pick attached

Sexton has a serious injury so not sure if the Sixers should even be trading for him.

[SparksAC]

10 years from now...
Ben Simmons sues Rich Paul for losing out on millions and his basketball career.

Doubt that. Simmons is making his own choices. It's up to Paul to support his client but he surely didn't recommend his course of action (and not without any legal protections).

Naw he sueing rich Paul. I have never seen someone with less leverage act so reckless. The sixers have 100% of the power here.

If Ben offered to void his contract 100% and hit the open market I would believe Ben was sincere. Notice Kyrie doesn’t care...he on principle period...Ben wants his money, not follow rules, not play and get traded

How does an average worker at Walmart demand he get traded to Apple with a 6 figure job? This guy is insane. He has to be taking advice from Rich Paul's ego. How is no one close with him telling him what he's doing is straight up stupid and ruining his career?

[CobraCommander]

Doubt that. Simmons is making his own choices. It's up to Paul to support his client but he surely didn't recommend his course of action (and not without any legal protections).

Naw he sueing rich Paul. I have never seen someone with less leverage act so reckless. The sixers have 100% of the power here.

If Ben offered to void his contract 100% and hit the open market I would believe Ben was sincere. Notice Kyrie doesn’t care...he on principle period...Ben wants his money, not follow rules, not play and get traded

How does an average worker at Walmart demand he get traded to Apple with a 6 figure job? This guy is insane. He has to be taking advice from Rich Paul's ego. How is no one close with him telling him what he's doing is straight up stupid and ruining his career?

Exactly....

Ben ”hey guys, I want my same pay but I want to work at a apple now cause the Walmart customers are rude”.

Walmart manager. “Yeah Ben, cool story, now organize the socks in aisle 8, and make sure you move that pallet of fake glow in the dark turkeys...shoot break up that fight!”

[Temuhjan]

Sixers are toying with BS while waiting for the trade restrictions to lift on Dec 15.

The obvious trade is BS and Danny Green for Sexton, Osman and Love. Probably no pick attached

Sexton has a serious injury so not sure if the Sixers should even be trading for him.

Sexton will be a RFA next summer. The injury means Sexton will likely get locked into a cheap long term contract. Consider this a blessing in disguise for whoever that manages to land him. Plus, Daryl Morey can probably asks for a FRP too.

[GMjobZK]

Fire Morey. Lol. He makes 10M per year guaranteed with 4 years remaining.
Fire Doc? Lol. He also makes 10M per year guaranteed with 4 years remaining.

Your "solution" is for the owner to spend 80M + excluding the additional 20-40M it will take to replace them with DOWNGRADES.

A "stern" message indeed. Threatening them with free money. LOL.

Fire Morey yes , Fire Doc likely no but that’s the price he’ll have to pay to right the ship.

on top of that, how can they trade simmons for what his value is rn and still be a contender, that doesnt make sense.

They don’t need to trade for a star. They need role players that fit in with Embid and Harris. Kind of like what Washington did by trading Westbrook. Morey is so fixated on adding another star that he’s overlooking adding very good role players to make this work.

[Lockdown504090]

Fire Morey yes , Fire Doc likely no but that’s the price he’ll have to pay to right the ship.

on top of that, how can they trade simmons for what his value is rn and still be a contender, that doesnt make sense.

They don’t need to trade for a star. They need role players that fit in with Embid and Harris. Kind of like what Washington did by trading Westbrook. Morey is so fixated on adding another star that he’s overlooking adding very good role players to make this work.

How is that beating the bucks? What very good roles players are scoring with kd and kyrie

[GMjobZK]

on top of that, how can they trade simmons for what his value is rn and still be a contender, that doesnt make sense.

They don’t need to trade for a star. They need role players that fit in with Embid and Harris. Kind of like what Washington did by trading Westbrook. Morey is so fixated on adding another star that he’s overlooking adding very good role players to make this work.

How is that beating the bucks? What very good roles players are scoring with kd and kyrie

Philly isn’t a bad team right now and have a winning record. The right role players (multiple) for 1 star in Simmons would beat the Bucks. The Bucks have a losing record right now, let’s not forget about that. On top of that, Kyrie is no where to be found so I’m guessing you mean Harden and KD the same guys who just got wiped out by GoldenState last night? Lol

[puja21]

I think you're confusing the Cousins trade. Cousins was the one disgruntled at the time and hard to deal with (somewhat like Simmons in this situation). He was a hot head and a huge gamble for teams. Not to mention it really didn't work out well with Cousins in the long run. In this case, Simmons is a big gamble as well. The most Morey will get is a trade like the Cousins trade, players like Evans and Hield. Or maybe someone like Wall who is overpaid but could possibly be a great help for the Sixers if he stays healthy and is at least 70 or 80% of what he was prior to his injuries. That is a big IF though. Maybe even a Kyrie trade could happen if the Nets can't figure out how to get him to play, though rumors are that he may retire if he gets traded. Question is does Morey and the Sixers want to gamble on Wall or Kyrie, if they are available. If not, I just don't see other trades. Lillard, if he decides to move, will unlikely choose the Sixers and the Blazers would want to blow it all up and get picks, not take back 35 million in cap.

I'm not confusing anything -- you're misunderstanding the metaphor. It has nothing to do with "what Sac got" for Cousins

Rather, the comparison is simply that before the Cousins trade, thousands of people held a position like you're doing here on Simmons-- that the Pelicans couldn't POSSIBLY have the assets to trade for Cousins... And then everyone w/ this opinion was stunned when it happened and immediately started explaining "why" that was a special situation because no one likes being wrong.

You wrote a lot of words meandering all over the place about who you think they might be able to get (Wall / Kyrie) ... but this is only exemplifying exactly what I was saying: that "YOU" don't see it happening, so you write a ton of reasons why the Sixers' position is wrong.

The moment a trade happens that Morey wants, this is all moot. Like "Pelicans can't get Cousins" -- here, you and everyone is ironclad that the Sixers can't possibly get one of those "30 reportedly-desired star players on their list"-- The Sixers/Morey are the Pelicans in this case, but it's happened 1,000x in the NBA; an awful GM makes a trade no one can believe.

Similar example: everyone piled on Danny Ainge that he was "sitting on aging PP and KG too long" -- year after year as they won series after series. There are 100s of posts from those seasons that Ainge is "stupid and overvaluing his assets." The same people were completely dumbfounded with Billy King for surrendering a war chest of picks. You're assuming all the GMs are rational, but it happens so so often. Look at the history of the league. These bad GMs and terrible trades are everywhere.

Regardless, there is no benefit for Philly to get "just something" with their Embiid window, so they have nothing to lose even if it doesn't happen. They will be no farther from the title after failing to trade Simmons at all than they would be dumping Simmons for spare parts now.

[puja21]

I would argue that Morey is the stupid one. Simmons is not the cornerstone of a contender and no GM is going to trade for him as such. He's a $25M player on a $35M contract. He will not get a current All-Star in return. Don't misunderstand me, there are winning moves out there for PHI but none of them are going to make Morey look like a genius, not right away anyway.

Morey is worrying about appearing to win this trade when he should be worried about winning on the court. There are a handful of players that he could have traded Simmons for in the Summer that would have really helped PHI. Him asking for and All-Star, a prospect and picks is foolish for several reasons. 1) He's wasting time waiting for something that will not happen. 2) Prospects and picks do nothing for them. Morey says he'll wait four years if necessary, but their window is now. Embiid might not be in the league in four years. If they got a non-all-star starter and a solid rotation player they would be one of the deepest teams in the league. And if they got a non-all-star from the West like Barnes or McCollum they might actually be all-stars in the East. Morey might let his ego blow this for him.

But I guess, if your argument is that some GM might do something stupid and give Morey what he's asking for, sure anything is possible.... but that would be really, really stupid.

Someone mentioned Wall and Irving as "possible assets Morey could reasonably expect'

This reminds me that Wall was considered untradeable from the moment he tore his Achilles and with multiple 44M seasons left on his contract

Flash forward several years, he is being paid to stay home by Houston -- same as Simmons

But Washington has already turned this:
Wall and his absolutely insane money, one lottery-protected FRP, and some 2nds and 2nd swaps
into 5 NBA rotation players:
Kuz, Trez, KCP, Dinwiddie, and Aaron Holiday

As KG said much to the chagrin of ADIDAS: "Anything is possible"[sic]