If LeBron is available, Sixers should trade Simmons
PHILADELPHIA >> Unsaid but clear, never officially plotted but implied, controversial and potentially historic, the 76ers had one real end game for their infamous rebuilding project. Finally, there is a chance, according to some reports, that it can be achieved.
Listen … or at least imagine … Game 1 of the Sixers’ 2019-2020 season … player introductions: “And finally, from Akron, Ohio, Number 23 … LeBron James, James, James, James, James.”
Such was the idea, and from the start.
Such should be how the whole plot ends.
The concept was for the Sixers to lose games, win draft choices, become competitive, conserve finances, move into an Olympic-class training center, regain popularity, drive toward contention and ultimately make the maximum offer to the greatest player in the history of basketball. In some form or another, they did all of that. But as with any dirty scheme, something can always happen. An All-Star center can contract the flu midway through a promising postseason series. A tanked season can yield only a high draft choice tormented by thoracic outlet syndrome. Or James could choose to take the Lakers’ money instead.
That’s what happened. All of it. That’s why the Sixers’ project has stalled. That’s why it needs another push.
So there it came, from Los Angeles, in the form of whispers, gossips and even a responsible report or two that the Lakers would be interested in trading James, and that a package involving Ben Simmons would fit their asking price. Since that innuendo was stashed among equally reasonable and more believable reports that the Lakers remain interested in building around James, there is little urgency for fans to do all-night camping in front of sporting goods stores, just to be the first to overpay for a LeBron James replica Sixers jersey. But that doesn’t mean Elton Brand shouldn’t stay up all night trying to figure out a way to make it happen.
To the primary point: Simmons can’t shoot. More, he won’t shoot. He won’t learn to shoot. He won’t stop using his brother as his failed shooting instructor. He won’t do anything in basketball other than at his own pace, on his own smug terms. The Sixers have a head coach too influenced by some generations-long Australian connection to the Simmons family to order him to become a better shooter. And the other day, after another season crashed without its desired processed result, at the end of a season in which Simmons consented to attempt one (1) three-point shot, the timetable turned ridiculous.
“Like if I’m sitting in front of you and he’s 26, I think the conversation would probably be a little more disingenuous,” Brett Brown said. “But it’s going to be this discussion, I think, probably for a few years where none of you are going to be happy if he’s not cranking up 10 15-footers a game. I hear you.”
A few what? Years? As many as four? By then, Joel Embiid would be in his ninth NBA season. Brown would have been the Sixers’ coach for 10 years. And Brand would no longer be a young general manager.
Including the season he wasted on the disabled list, Simmons has been in the NBA for three years. Another four makes it seven, or, about halfway through a reasonably projected pro career. If the Sixers aren’t champions by then, and as long as they have a defiant point guard refusing to shoot they won’t be, what’s the point of keeping him around?
James is 34, does not have a no-trade clause, and is known to have compulsion to collect more championships. It’s how the participants in the competition for the greatest of all time like to keep the score. Despite a challenging season in L.A., James has at least two more great years on his account. Three maybe. At this point, that would be plenty for the Sixers to halt their 0-since-1983 humiliation.
Should James be sent to Philadelphia, it immediately would solve Brand’s other crisis: Jimmy Butler’s charge into free agency. When Butler famously hesitated to recommit to the Sixers at the end of the season, Brand was in danger of having traded two important pieces, Dario Saric and Robert Covington, for Butler as a half-a-season rental. So he must resign Butler. And Butler absolutely would agree to return to a team with LeBron James, Joel Embiid and perhaps Tobias Harris, one that would rocket to the top of the Las Vegas odds board as likely 20192020 champions.
Simmons, who would be a restricted free agent after 2020, has been doubleparked in Philadelphia, all the better for a quick getaway. If hints are to be acknowledged, he’d like some day to play in Hollywood. Though customarily risky to trade a 22-year-old All-Star, the Sixers needn’t worry about Simmons ever punishing them for the move. Two reasons: One, he will be in the Western Conference. Two, he won’t be able to shoot there either.
At that level of pro basketball, the players make the moves. At that level of business, the multi-billionaire owners will be careful. But James and Simmons share representation. And if James can achieve his goal of winning another championship and, simultaneously, Simmons can realize his dream of playing on the West Coast, the atmosphere for such accommodation might be favorable.
So relieve Brett Brown of the burden to continue to appease his Australian friends. Free Ben Simmons to work at his own pace on a shot that will never develop. Reassure Jimmy Butler (who always seemed to appear with Embiid, not Simmons, at press conferences) that he will be the point guard. Add the greatest basketball player in history.
LeBron James as a 76er? Unlikely. Yet Elton Brand, who already has impressed as a general manager, might be able to find a way. If so, let him complete a job that already has taken way too long.
Contact Jack McCaffery at jmccaffery@21stcenturymedia.com and follow him on Twitter @ JackMcCaffery.