Nets living Sixers’ old Simmons nightmare
NEW YORK — The 76ers aren’t done kicking Ben Simmons while he’s down.
Simmons’ former teammate Georges Niang went on Philadelphia’s “The John Kincade Show” and said Simmons “kinda handicapped” the Sixers at the beginning of last season when he cited mental health issues as the reason for sitting out the entire front half of the season before forcing a trade to Brooklyn.
“When you’re building a roster — I’m talking from a general manager standpoint — you take, I don’t know how much he makes ($35.9M) but it’s a max contract, you immediately take that off the books (because he says) I’m not playing,” Niang said in an interview that aired on Friday. “Now you have to figure out where other role players have to step up and replace the passing, dribbling, rebounding, defense.”
A member of the panel of interviewers interrupted Niang to point out he didn’t mention shooting, an area Simmons has notoriously lacked dating back well before his arrival in Brooklyn.
“Yeah,” Niang said. “Exactly my point.”
When informed that Simmons had fallen out of the starting lineup in Brooklyn, Niang responded: “Well that ain’t none of my business.”
By now, Nets fans now know Niang’s harsh truths all too well.
They experienced a similar unease when Simmons arrived in Brooklyn as part of the James Harden deal last season, only to have the goalpost for his debut continually pushed back until Brooklyn’s final firstround playoff game, the morning of which he told the team he had back soreness and would be unavailable to play.
Those patterns of inconsistent availability have continued after an offseason that included a minor procedure on his lower back.
Simmons has appeared in 42 of the Nets’ 59 games this season. He is averaging seven points, six rebounds and six assists per game. He missed five straight games due to left knee soreness from late January into early February and suffered a lateral left calf strain in late November that sidelined him four games. Both setbacks occurred when Simmons played in both games of a back-to-back.
Simmons said he’s been battling the knee issue all year, that he wants to be on the court regardless of his minutes workload and that he hasn’t been 100% healthy all year.
“I’m just trying to give the team what I can,” he said.