The NBA trade deadline is rapidly approaching, as we are less than three days away from the 3 p.m. ET cutoff for trades, and as has been the case for months, much of the focus on a national level is on what will happen with Ben Simmons and the 76ers.
Simmons has continued to refuse to play for the Sixers as he demands a trade, while Philly is still trying to extract a star-level player in return for him. To this point, they have not found a trade package that meets their demands, and many seem to believe they’ll drag this out into the summer in hopes of making a run at James Harden (who they’ve tried to talk about getting at the deadline, but Steve Nash squashed that publicly).
All of this stems from growing discontent from Simmons with the situation in Philadelphia, one in which he believes he got scapegoated by Doc Rivers and Joel Embiid for their playoff loss to the Hawks last season after already feeling pushed to the periphery by trade rumors involving him and Harden at last year’s deadline. Embiid spoke, again, about those comments on Monday in an interview with Mike Missanelli on 97.5 The Fanatic in Philadelphia, and detailed why he felt his comments weren’t out of line — noting all the other people he called out, including Matisse Thybulle and himself, for the end of Game 7 — and when asked if he felt Simmons’ reaction was unreasonable, he said “definitely.”
“Do you think his reaction was unreasonable?”
“Oh, definitely.”
Joel Embiid responds to Ben Simmons’ reported frustration with Embiid’s post-Game 7 comments
pic.twitter.com/85RG95P3vt
— NBC Sports Philadelphia (@NBCSPhilly) February 7, 2022
Embiid was later asked what could be done differently and defended Doc Rivers comments, noting the support he offered Simmons all season and saying that Rivers should be allowed to make mistakes in the heat of the moment too.
Joel Embiid when asked by @MikeMiss25 whether anything could have been done differently after the Hawks series to prevent the Simmons situation:
“I mean, the only thing I can think about is the comments…But I really believe that it’s really deeper than that.” pic.twitter.com/UyL5MU2IEs
— Derek Bodner (@DerekBodnerNBA) February 7, 2022
All told, it just continues to emphasize that there is no coming back from this for the Sixers and Simmons, despite the front office continually stating they want Simmons to return to the team this season. Embiid and the team seem to have completely moved on and it is clear that it’s best for all parties for Simmons to get a fresh start, it’s just a matter of when that happens. The good news for all of us is, no matter whether he’s traded by 3 p.m. Thursday or not, once that passes we can hopefully get a few months reprieve of Simmons reports as there’s nothing that can be done until the offseason once the deadline goes by.