Joel Embiid: “We got rid of Jimmy, just to make sure he needed the ball in his hands”

[JimmyPlopper]

Embiid has become one of my least liked players in the league. He puts up nice "impact stats" while his team loses in the playoffs. He is insecure, hence his jealousy of Simmons, and acting through the media shows how shallow and feeble minded he is. I can't wait for Simmons to humiliate. The main takeaway from all of this is that Embiid is a big baby, Rivers is incompetent, Morey is under the thumb of an owner who is personally an ****, know nothing about basketball, and was a personal friend and business partner of Jeffrey Epstein. I hope the Sixers get whats coming to them after all of this. God bless Hinkie.

[GrindCityHustle]

Ben just feels the Sixers have peaked, Do you blame him?

If you can't get it done with Jimmy Butler on ur team how is this team now going to fair better going into the future? He gave it a shot and it didn't pan out. Jimmy wasn't an issue to Ben. Sixers just didn't want to pay Jimmy because he had a history of causing locker room problems. Remember KAT? They only brought in Jimmy and Tobias because they were so cheap to get on the open market at that time. You weren't suppose to resign Tobias to a contract like that after a failed playoff run. Jimmy was worth keeping but that wasn't Ben's doing. Embiid is just taking the blame off himself as he probably had more to do with Jimmy leaving than Ben.....

Also...
Is Seth Curry going to put up 30ppg?
Is Embiid ever going to play back to back 82 game seasons?
Is Thybulle going to turn into a "TRUE' defensive jauggernaut ala Ben Wallace?
Is Tobias Harris more than just a regular season points guy?
Its just not Simmons not able to shoot 3's here

Ben had some bad moments in the playoffs and became the scrapegoat in a way that was very unhealthy for any player to deal with. He was badly developed by the Sixers and Fultz messed up everything with his own BS but got a pass from the media. The Sixers had issues way before Ben brought his to the table. Its been a botched patch job ever since Hinkie was given the pink slip or forced to make picks he wasn't comfortable with. He was going to draft KP over Okafor but ownership objected.

Hinkie and Simmons were both screwed by the NBA elite. Hinkie never intended for Ben to be used the way he was. The process is dead. The end.

[G R E Y]

Yikes! Did Embiid just go from 'love to play with him' to ''We got rid of Jimmy, just to make sure he needed the ball in his hands' in like a week? Amazing. I guess the gloves, hand from mouth, and fig leaf are all off and the bare honesty (not necessarily truth, mind) is being dropped.

It was quiet for a while after Klutch made it known Maxey would go along with Ben, but since there's been an increase in media punches and counter punches.

Ben trolling by liking a tweet outlining the potential fines he faces adds another layer.

I'm surprised at how many former players are weighing in. Didn't seem like they were so clearly on one side in other similar situations.

Not sure anymore if it means this will drag out longer or will end sooner because of the latest salvos.

[God Squad]

Embiid is next out the door if Sixers don't right this wrong.

[austuf]

All player response's in this situation should be "He ain't here, so we ain't talking abut him"

[HeartBreakKid]

Sixers didn't get rid of Jimmy.

Jimmy left.

Uh...thats not what happened.

[HeartBreakKid]

Brodie, the org got rid of anything and everything that made sense by keeping Ben Simmons, period.

Jimmy is the only player we should have kept and we compounded the error by signing Tobias

Harris’ contract was a monumental blunder

using the thinking embiid says philly is, tobias was the versitile stretch 4 that would give ben the room to work and be able to score..... if simmmons was a superstar right now, tobias would be worth the contract because his synergy with ben would be extremely difficult to stop and score against... but ben sucks and as a result tobias has a role he shouldnt and looks like hes an overpaid dirt bag.

Tobias was never a great player or worth his contract, and certainly is not a "stretch 4".

[DroseReturnChi]

Embiid has become one of my least liked players in the league. He puts up nice "impact stats" while his team loses in the playoffs. He is insecure, hence his jealousy of Simmons, and acting through the media shows how shallow and feeble minded he is. I can't wait for Simmons to humiliate. The main takeaway from all of this is that Embiid is a big baby, Rivers is incompetent, Morey is under the thumb of an owner who is personally an ****, know nothing about basketball, and was a personal friend and business partner of Jeffrey Epstein. I hope the Sixers get whats coming to them after all of this. God bless Hinkie.

he is a diva 2nd all nba at best who i dont consider superstar. running his mouth again to ruin the franchise and philly fans are busy bashing their hero in ben.

[DroseReturnChi]

Yikes! Did Embiid just go from 'love to play with him' to ''We got rid of Jimmy, just to make sure he needed the ball in his hands' in like a week? Amazing. I guess the gloves, hand from mouth, and fig leaf are all off and the bare honesty (not necessarily truth, mind) is being dropped.

It was quiet for a while after Klutch made it known Maxey would go along with Ben, but since there's been an increase in media punches and counter punches.

Ben trolling by liking a tweet outlining the potential fines he faces adds another layer.

I'm surprised at how many former players are weighing in. Didn't seem like they were so clearly on one side in other similar situations.

Not sure anymore if it means this will drag out longer or will end sooner because of the latest salvos.

bc he is a liar. anyone who believed this diva is not taking ben seriously. just look at their personality.
one is a low profile guy that appreciates life and as real of a human being. the other is a diva seeking attention and 10million insta followers to be the next lebron.

joel is going to bring disaster to philly i guarantee. right now he can run his mouth bc he is mvp candidate but when he starts to fall off he will get trashed by the next star just like he did to jimmy, ben. thats karma. sixers are already screwed brand, harris, doc these guys are all yes man for joel that wouldnt mind trashing ben to keep their jobs. organization incompetence from top to bottom morey cant do anything.

[eagereyez]

You can come up with other narratives. Maybe Jimmy left because of aliens and now he's covering it up. All you have is the truth Jimmy has given here, Jimmy of all players is going to give you the truth. If you choose not to believe what jimmy is saying then you want to have a pretty solid line of evidence to refute it.

That feels like a weirdly defensive and dismissive response, but okay I can explain it again and in more detail if you want. Butler says in the video that he left because he heard the team was concerned about 'controlling' him, he doesn't explain why but you're right we should start with that. First what would have caused that feeling? Brett Brown is known as a particularly democratic and non-heavy-handed coach, and Redick in the video confirms that Butler didn't seem to be that difficult a guy to work with on the Sixers. So what would the Sixers be controlling, what tension would they be concerned about? Butler doesn't say and doesn't give us much to work with, the narrative he gives skips over it.

In the video the only tensions Butler talks about were Ben being heated about losing touches in the PO, and him saying TJ McConnell also wanted some more touches. Both those seem like they're more incidental things that came up in the flow of the conversation so I don't think they're giving you a clear answer. But even if you want them to they're both pointing towards some ongoing tensions with the Sixers around spreading out the ball on offense. Sure it's speculating to say that's the main reason there was tension, but Butler doesn't contradict that and there's clearly a TON of info and stories that aren't mentioned here. Then we also have Embiid's story, so I'm not sure why we think that Butler saying nothing about Simmons' feelings means that what Embiid says about it is false.

Also my point about how we reframe things isn't that JB (or I) make things up or make up fake narratives, it's that after the fact we all tell a simpler story to make sense of a more complicated heap of things. Like if at work I have 10 months worth of tension with someone about 50 things, most of it minor but some if it spilling into the open, and then that person finally quits over a small final argument--I'm not going to tell a story that goes into detail about every little disagreement or anything else. You just end up saying 'that person always had a serious attitude' or 'we were never in agreement about basic strategy.' (Clearer example might be breaking up with an ex, we can all remember multiple versions of stories we've told and re-told people over time about what happened there.) JB here said that he never felt quite right about the Sixers FO and his role there, and that they seemed to be inventing tension that he didn't think was there. But that leaves out many months of the individual arguments, grumblings, side-conversations, etc, plus a bunch of stuff the FO and other guys were talking about that didn't include him. Jimmy's story isn't about that cuz why would it be? End of the day, he didn't feel respected there or like he was a good fit so it didn't work out. Perfectly reasonable short narrative but it doesn't tell us the what and why at all.

Jimmy highlighted the issue was a lack of leadership and a lack of communication in the locker room. I think Brown was the main problem here but apparently none of the guys spoke up.

He states that he wasn't played on ball enough during RS and that it caused a lot of tension between him and Brown. Then he said that switching himself on the ball in the playoffs was also a mistake. Not enough was developed to blend Jimmy into the team.

I think it's pretty obvious why Jimmy left, he'd also long been interested in Miami since sparking up a friendship with Wade in Chicago.

Sixers didn't get rid of Jimmy because of Ben.. it sounds like you agree with this too in your post.. therefore Joel's statement is untrue no matter how we slice it.

You're somehow not understanding how all the events are related and consistent. Let me break it down for you:

1) It was reported that Simmons was pissed that he lost ball handling duties to Butler in the Raptors series. Keep in mind he also lost ball handling duties to TJ McConnell the previous year against the Celtics. Brown knew that Simmons was a huge problem against half court playoffs defenses and adjusted. Doc didn't catch onto this or adjust and so the Simmons PG train ran into a brick wall against the Hawks.

2) Butler didn't like that Brown changed the offense midway against the Raptors. He also felt like the team didn't have a real leader and that his skills weren't being fully utilized. All of that is true, but Butler never explained why it's true.

What underlies these two points is that it all comes back to Ben, his inability to play PG in the playoffs, and his huge ego. Embiid is right - the Sixers were hesitant to bring back Jimmy because they knew both he and Ben wanted to dominate the ball, so they picked Ben. The ironic thing is the Sixers were better with Butler the PG, but decided to throw away their future on Simmons the PG.

[axeman23]

Joel Embiid is absolutely correct. I wish to God they kept jimmy. They would've won the chip this past year. Just a very very trash situation.

Jimmy Butler had a worse playoff performance than Ben Simmons.

14 points on 16 shots!! A whopping 29% from the field and a +/- of negative 21.5 points per GAME in a sweep.

If you think Simmons was bad, that might be the worst playoff performance ever that no one is talking about.

But it’s Jimmy Butler, the guy who gets a pass for every playoff failure.

I think a lot of it has to do with BS being the #1 overall and the enormous expectations. Also, it appears that BS doesn't work on his game in the offseason.

Butler is the complete opposite. He practiced an entire summer in Houston with no air conditioning / wifi one year to get better.

Perception becomes reality

"Did you say NO Wi-FI??? Don't you worry, Jimmy! The Pecker's on the way!"

[eyeatoma]

Embiid has become one of my least liked players in the league. He puts up nice "impact stats" while his team loses in the playoffs. He is insecure, hence his jealousy of Simmons, and acting through the media shows how shallow and feeble minded he is. I can't wait for Simmons to humiliate. The main takeaway from all of this is that Embiid is a big baby, Rivers is incompetent, Morey is under the thumb of an owner who is personally an ****, know nothing about basketball, and was a personal friend and business partner of Jeffrey Epstein. I hope the Sixers get whats coming to them after all of this. God bless Hinkie.

LOL, Embiid is one of the least liked players in the league? That's news to me.

[eyeatoma]

Embiid has become one of my least liked players in the league. He puts up nice "impact stats" while his team loses in the playoffs. He is insecure, hence his jealousy of Simmons, and acting through the media shows how shallow and feeble minded he is. I can't wait for Simmons to humiliate. The main takeaway from all of this is that Embiid is a big baby, Rivers is incompetent, Morey is under the thumb of an owner who is personally an ****, know nothing about basketball, and was a personal friend and business partner of Jeffrey Epstein. I hope the Sixers get whats coming to them after all of this. God bless Hinkie.

he is a diva 2nd all nba at best who i dont consider superstar. running his mouth again to ruin the franchise and philly fans are busy bashing their hero in ben.

Hilarious when you follow Luka, who literally has an RBF every single moment he's on the court.

[ReddoverKobe]

Embiid has become one of my least liked players in the league. He puts up nice "impact stats" while his team loses in the playoffs. He is insecure, hence his jealousy of Simmons, and acting through the media shows how shallow and feeble minded he is. I can't wait for Simmons to humiliate. The main takeaway from all of this is that Embiid is a big baby, Rivers is incompetent, Morey is under the thumb of an owner who is personally an ****, know nothing about basketball, and was a personal friend and business partner of Jeffrey Epstein. I hope the Sixers get whats coming to them after all of this. God bless Hinkie.

Ben, where do you think you will end up?

[Zvaart]

Embiid has become one of my least liked players in the league. He puts up nice "impact stats" while his team loses in the playoffs. He is insecure, hence his jealousy of Simmons, and acting through the media shows how shallow and feeble minded he is. I can't wait for Simmons to humiliate. The main takeaway from all of this is that Embiid is a big baby, Rivers is incompetent, Morey is under the thumb of an owner who is personally an ****, know nothing about basketball, and was a personal friend and business partner of Jeffrey Epstein, who didn't kill himself. I hope the Sixers get whats coming to them after all of this. God bless Hinkie.

i took the liberty to fix the post for historical accuracy.

[Tomjas]

That feels like a weirdly defensive and dismissive response, but okay I can explain it again and in more detail if you want. Butler says in the video that he left because he heard the team was concerned about 'controlling' him, he doesn't explain why but you're right we should start with that. First what would have caused that feeling? Brett Brown is known as a particularly democratic and non-heavy-handed coach, and Redick in the video confirms that Butler didn't seem to be that difficult a guy to work with on the Sixers. So what would the Sixers be controlling, what tension would they be concerned about? Butler doesn't say and doesn't give us much to work with, the narrative he gives skips over it.

In the video the only tensions Butler talks about were Ben being heated about losing touches in the PO, and him saying TJ McConnell also wanted some more touches. Both those seem like they're more incidental things that came up in the flow of the conversation so I don't think they're giving you a clear answer. But even if you want them to they're both pointing towards some ongoing tensions with the Sixers around spreading out the ball on offense. Sure it's speculating to say that's the main reason there was tension, but Butler doesn't contradict that and there's clearly a TON of info and stories that aren't mentioned here. Then we also have Embiid's story, so I'm not sure why we think that Butler saying nothing about Simmons' feelings means that what Embiid says about it is false.

Also my point about how we reframe things isn't that JB (or I) make things up or make up fake narratives, it's that after the fact we all tell a simpler story to make sense of a more complicated heap of things. Like if at work I have 10 months worth of tension with someone about 50 things, most of it minor but some if it spilling into the open, and then that person finally quits over a small final argument--I'm not going to tell a story that goes into detail about every little disagreement or anything else. You just end up saying 'that person always had a serious attitude' or 'we were never in agreement about basic strategy.' (Clearer example might be breaking up with an ex, we can all remember multiple versions of stories we've told and re-told people over time about what happened there.) JB here said that he never felt quite right about the Sixers FO and his role there, and that they seemed to be inventing tension that he didn't think was there. But that leaves out many months of the individual arguments, grumblings, side-conversations, etc, plus a bunch of stuff the FO and other guys were talking about that didn't include him. Jimmy's story isn't about that cuz why would it be? End of the day, he didn't feel respected there or like he was a good fit so it didn't work out. Perfectly reasonable short narrative but it doesn't tell us the what and why at all.

Jimmy highlighted the issue was a lack of leadership and a lack of communication in the locker room. I think Brown was the main problem here but apparently none of the guys spoke up.

He states that he wasn't played on ball enough during RS and that it caused a lot of tension between him and Brown. Then he said that switching himself on the ball in the playoffs was also a mistake. Not enough was developed to blend Jimmy into the team.

I think it's pretty obvious why Jimmy left, he'd also long been interested in Miami since sparking up a friendship with Wade in Chicago.

Sixers didn't get rid of Jimmy because of Ben.. it sounds like you agree with this too in your post.. therefore Joel's statement is untrue no matter how we slice it.

You're somehow not understanding how all the events are related and consistent. Let me break it down for you:

1) It was reported that Simmons was pissed that he lost ball handling duties to Butler in the Raptors series. Keep in mind he also lost ball handling duties to TJ McConnell the previous year against the Celtics. Brown knew that Simmons was a huge problem against half court playoffs defenses and adjusted. Doc didn't catch onto this or adjust and so the Simmons PG train ran into a brick wall against the Hawks.

2) Butler didn't like that Brown changed the offense midway against the Raptors. He also felt like the team didn't have a real leader and that his skills weren't being fully utilized. All of that is true, but Butler never explained why it's true.

What underlies these two points is that it all comes back to Ben, his inability to play PG in the playoffs, and his huge ego. Embiid is right - the Sixers were hesitant to bring back Jimmy because they knew both he and Ben wanted to dominate the ball, so they picked Ben. The ironic thing is the Sixers were better with Butler the PG, but decided to throw away their future on Simmons the PG.

Unfortunately not borne out by the facts as Simmons spends a considerable amount of time playing off the ball and has done so for his entire career

What’s more, while the Sixers have 1 massively ball dominant player, it isn’t Simmons

[Wilfried]

What’s more, while the Sixers have 1 massively ball dominant player, it isn’t Simmons

Well indeed, Simmons is more off the 'I'm afraid of the ball'-type of player

[Lou_23]

Now explain the decision to draft Fultz

Are you serious ? He was a fantastic fit. The Sixers still need a player like him in college.

[Lou_23]

He wanted Miami at all cost nothing philly could do

Miami didnt have cap space dude. He went there because Sixers were happy with the s&t

[Simmons25]

Sixers didn't get rid of Jimmy.

Jimmy left.

Uh...thats not what happened.

Ahhh that is exactly what happened. Embiid is a liar. Jimmy even made it very clear he left and not the other way around on JJ Redicks podcast last year. I've lost all respect for Embiid... he knows the real reason why Butler left but used it as leverage to pour more media and fan hate on Simmons.

https://www.nbcsports.com/philadelphia/76ers/jimmy-butler-brett-brown-sixers-heat-playoffs-jj-redick-podcast

".....it seemed like Butler didn’t like what was said to him when discussions of him returning to Philly occured.

A main reason I didn’t go back was because somebody asked, ‘Can you control him?’ Like, ‘Can you control Jimmy? Because if you can control Jimmy, we would think about having him back.’ I was like, you don’t got to worry about it. S---, ain’t nobody f---ing control me. For one, I ain’t just out there doing no bulls---, but the fact that you’re trying to control a grown man, … nah, I’m cool. Because I don’t do anything that’s just drastically f---ing stupidly crazy. I do not do that. So don’t come at me with the, ‘let me try and control him.’ You good. Don’t even worry about it. … If that’s what y’all are worried about, then good luck to y’all.”