Another sign that the Sixers are done with Simmons
The half-hour swag-and-sway was about to spring Daryl Morey untouched into the offseason Tuesday, and all the 76ers’ president had to do was avoid the only question that mattered.
He’d cleverly praised his roster, instinctively saluted his coach and danced through the predictable promises that improvement is required for a franchise ever-frustrated to justify a disintegrated rebuilding process.
He even snapped down the ace of trump in an otherwise standard end-of-season look back.
“It starts with me,” he said. Now who could argue with that?
But as if to find out that the other team sometimes can run a good play, perhaps even completing a dunk when wide open, Morey was cornered. He was asked to commit, without qualifiers, to Ben Simmons being a 76er next season.
He did not say yes.
And with that, it was on, a franchise-altering offseason for a secondyear acting GM and a second-year head coach who each wouldn’t mind being around for third, fourth or fifth years.
“I would say we have a very strong group we believe in,” Morey responded. “There’s none of us who can predict the future of what’s going to happen in any place.”
As the team president, Morey has every authority to set the 76ers’ roster. And since Simmons is under contract for four more years, Morey can predict with certainty that he will not be traded.
Simmons cannot be a free agent, restricted or otherwise. He can request a trade, but Morey has the power to deny that. Technically, it’s possible that Simmons retires, and in that case he would not be a Sixer next season. But short of that, it is fully up to Morey to commit a 2021-2022 roster spot to a player who was booed in the Sixers’ season-ending loss Sunday and whose tired refusal to shoot continues to haunt the franchise in the playoffs. And he won’t.
The math. Do it. And Las Vegas, by the way, already has done it, making it about a 3-to-1 likelihood that Simmons will play somewhere other than Philadelphia next year.
So the team president is not making the commitment, the bookies have made their play and the fans of Philadelphia, who every once and again are known to turn on a player, are heckling Josh Harris’ $170,000,000 investment.
What other signs are necessary to conclude that Simmons replica jerseys soon will be on the discount counter for a couple of bucks, dumped atop those piles of No. 11 Eagles shirts?
“We love what Ben brings,” Morey continued. “We love what Joel (Embiid) brings. We love what Tobias (Harris) brings. In terms of what’s next, we’re going to do what’s best for the 76ers to give us the best chance to win a championship with every single player on the roster.”
Pressed once more for clarification that he was not committing to Simmons, Morey tried to pass and screen away.
“I’m not addressing Ben Simmons,” he said. “But any move that will help our team win the championship or improve our odds, we will look at it and do it if it makes sense to do that.”
A day earlier, Doc Rivers revealed the Sixers’ strategy for any pending Simmons dismissal. Always plotting a move or three ahead when he addresses the press, the Sixers’ coach said he had a plan to improve Simmons’ foul shooting that would take the sixth-year pro to “a different level.” Made sense. As long as Simmons is still a Sixer, the coach might as well try to make it sound that he is a franchise treasure. Was Rivers supposed to say he’d tired of coaching a me-first talent with an eternal refusal to complete his skill package?
So Rivers did what he could to artificially inflate the price on Simmons. And some team will pay it, most likely one ready for a deep rebuilding cleanse. Portland, desperately needing a new approach, could be willing to part with C.J. McCollum, 29, and use Simmons to aptly deliver passes to Damian Lillard. The Raptors have already won a championship with Kyle Lowry and could sign-and-trade the 35-year-old to his hometown team for the 24-yearold Simmons. Both moves would help the Sixers, who have about another three years to maximize the championship potential of Embiid.
Morey, a renowned dealmaker, cannot trust Simmons in that building for one more year.
He will, though, try to swerve around what he knows must be done.
“We’re committed to this group,” he said, deflecting a Simmons-specific question. “This is a really good group that played at a really high level. Obviously, some of my job is to self-refract, read what others are writing. You can learn from that.”
The writing is clear. By Tuesday, so was Daryl Morey’s ultimate non-commitment to Ben Simmons.