Marcus Hayes: Enough B.S. Suspend Ben Simmons indefinitely.
Marcus Hayes, The Philadelphia Inquirer
NBA tipoff: Live news and scores as the NBA begins its 75th season
Elise Amendola
The Nets' All-Star guard went on Instagram Live last week to say he still hopes to play for Brooklyn this season but has decided not to take the COVID-19 vaccination shot. He said he's not pro-vaccine or anti-vaccine, explaining that "this is about my life and what I am choosing to do."
New York's COVID-19 vaccination protocols require that only vaccinated people are allowed at various public indoor activities. A player in the New York market has to have at least one vaccination shot to practice or play in the city.
Brooklyn general manager Sean Marks said the team wasn't going to allow Irving to join the team until he gets at least one vaccine shot.
According to reports, the NBA and players' association agreed to a reduction in pay of 1/91.6% of salary for each game an unvaccinated player misses because of local COVID-19 vaccine mandates.
Irving would lose $380,000 per game if he's not able to play.
Irving said on Instagram that "I'm not retiring."
Elise Amendola
The Nets' All-Star guard went on Instagram Live last week to say he still hopes to play for Brooklyn this season but has decided not to take the COVID-19 vaccination shot. He said he's not pro-vaccine or anti-vaccine, explaining that "this is about my life and what I am choosing to do."
New York's COVID-19 vaccination protocols require that only vaccinated people are allowed at various public indoor activities. A player in the New York market has to have at least one vaccination shot to practice or play in the city.
Brooklyn general manager Sean Marks said the team wasn't going to allow Irving to join the team until he gets at least one vaccine shot.
According to reports, the NBA and players' association agreed to a reduction in pay of 1/91.6% of salary for each game an unvaccinated player misses because of local COVID-19 vaccine mandates.
Irving would lose $380,000 per game if he's not able to play.
NBA tipoff: Live news and scores as the NBA begins its 75th season
Matt Rourke
After saying he didn't want to play for the 76ers and wasn't going to show up to training camp, he finally showed up to camp.
It makes one wonder if money had anything to do with his decision. The 76ers had put $8.25 million due Simmons in escrow. His fines for missing games and practices could be taken from that amount.
Simmons, who has four years left on his contract worth about $147 million, is with the team working on his conditioning. The 76ers have said they'd like to keep the 25-year-old All-Star forward.
The teams that had reached out to the 76ers said Philadelphia was asking for too much to trade Simmons, and the teams don't believe Philadelphia has that leverage any more to get a big haul.
Stay tuned.
Matt Rourke
After saying he didn't want to play for the 76ers and wasn't going to show up to training camp, he finally showed up to camp.
It makes one wonder if money had anything to do with his decision. The 76ers had put $8.25 million due Simmons in escrow. His fines for missing games and practices could be taken from that amount.
Simmons, who has four years left on his contract worth about $147 million, is with the team working on his conditioning. The 76ers have said they'd like to keep the 25-year-old All-Star forward.
The teams that had reached out to the 76ers said Philadelphia was asking for too much to trade Simmons, and the teams don't believe Philadelphia has that leverage any more to get a big haul.
NBA tipoff: Live news and scores as the NBA begins its 75th season
According to 80% of NBA executives polled during an NBA.com survey, the Lakers will reach the NBA Finals before losing to the just-as-talented Brooklyn Nets.
For the Lakers, it'll be about making it fit on a deep roster, keeping egos in check and playing better defense than most pundits think they can.
They have 11 new players on their 14-man roster, with LeBron James, Anthony Davis and Talen Horton-Tucker returning.
They've added the dynamic Russell Westbrook, with many believing that the triple-double machine will have to make the most changes to his game to make their Big 3 work.
They've brought back Dwight Howard for a third tour of duty and added Carmelo Anthony, two players with strong personalities.
They have nine players over 30 and six at least 35 or older, so age will be a topic of concern all season.
According to 80% of NBA executives polled during an NBA.com survey, the Lakers will reach the NBA Finals before losing to the just-as-talented Brooklyn Nets.
For the Lakers, it'll be about making it fit on a deep roster, keeping egos in check and playing better defense than most pundits think they can.
They have 11 new players on their 14-man roster, with LeBron James, Anthony Davis and Talen Horton-Tucker returning.
They've added the dynamic Russell Westbrook, with many believing that the triple-double machine will have to make the most changes to his game to make their Big 3 work.
They've brought back Dwight Howard for a third tour of duty and added Carmelo Anthony, two players with strong personalities.
They have nine players over 30 and six at least 35 or older, so age will be a topic of concern all season.
NBA tipoff: Live news and scores as the NBA begins its 75th season
Paul Sancya
Don't the Milwaukee Bucks have one of the league's top-five players in Giannis Antetokounmpo, one of the top two-way players in Jrue Holiday, an All-Star in Khris Middleton and some really good complementary pieces?
Maybe it's because many feel the Bucks were lucky to win the title and it was their time last season when many top contenders were missing star players to injury.
Regardless, the Bucks still have a very good team.
Paul Sancya
Don't the Milwaukee Bucks have one of the league's top-five players in Giannis Antetokounmpo, one of the top two-way players in Jrue Holiday, an All-Star in Khris Middleton and some really good complementary pieces?
Maybe it's because many feel the Bucks were lucky to win the title and it was their time last season when many top contenders were missing star players to injury.
Regardless, the Bucks still have a very good team.
NBA tipoff: Live news and scores as the NBA begins its 75th season
Adam Hunger
Irving can't practice or play in a game in Brooklyn because he's hasn't met New York's COVID-19 mandate that requires a player to have at least one vaccination shot to participate in indoor practices or game.
Still, many NBA executives in the NBA.com survey believe the Nets will win the title because they still have the nearly unstoppable Kevin Durant and the lethal James Harden.
It's just that it will be tough task to undertake if the uber-talented Irving remains a distraction for the Nets all season.
Adam Hunger
Irving can't practice or play in a game in Brooklyn because he's hasn't met New York's COVID-19 mandate that requires a player to have at least one vaccination shot to participate in indoor practices or game.
Still, many NBA executives in the NBA.com survey believe the Nets will win the title because they still have the nearly unstoppable Kevin Durant and the lethal James Harden.
It's just that it will be tough task to undertake if the uber-talented Irving remains a distraction for the Nets all season.
Marcus Hayes: Enough B.S. Suspend Ben Simmons indefinitely.
Charles Fox/The Philadelphia Inquirer/TNS
Philadelphia 76ers head coach Doc Rivers can relate to a certain extent to Ben Simmons' situation as a holdout. (Charles Fox/The Philadelphia Inquirer/TNS)
Charles Fox/The Philadelphia Inquirer/TNS
Philadelphia 76ers head coach Doc Rivers can relate to a certain extent to Ben Simmons' situation as a holdout. (Charles Fox/The Philadelphia Inquirer/TNS)
I’ve had enough. We’ve had enough. Even the Sixers have had enough of Ben Simmons, hereafter known as B.S.
Enough B.S. Suspend him indefinitely. Let the players’ union fight it. Who cares?
Let Klutch Sports complain. Let it threaten to not do business with you. It doesn’t matter. Rich Paul, LeBron James’ personal lieutenant and Klutch’s chief, can leak whatever he wants to whoever he wants. This garbage cannot stand.
You can’t trade Simmons at this moment. He has zero value. Let him stew, make him return, play him at power forward, reestablish his worth, and then ship him off.
Simmons never has been worth Damian Lillard, or Bradley Beal. Now, he’s not worth CJ McCollum.
Heck, he’s not worth CJ McCollum’s jockstrap.
Kick him out for good. Kick him out until he ceases to pout.
Doc Rivers kicked the disgruntled point guard out of practice Tuesday and suspended him for one game for conduct detrimental to the team. Simmons was not engaging in practice as a player should. He was dogging it. Kick rocks, kid.
It’s Terrell Owens 2.0.
This happened on the eve of the Sixers’ opener at New Orleans. Simmons could not be more of a distraction if he secreted game plans to each opponent and gave Karl-Anthony Towns the password to Joel Embiid’s Twitter account.
Rivers is Simmons’ most committed apologist. Now, though, Doc has jumped off the “Treasure Ben Simmons” train, of which he was the conductor last season. He demeaned himself defending the NBA’s most reluctant shooter and its most narcissistic star — and that’s saying something.
Hit him where it hurts most: his wallet.
The Sixers already paid Simmons $8.25 million of his $33 million salary due him this season, but withheld the $8.25 million lump sum due Oct. 1 since he was holding out, hoping to force a low-value trade. Assuming they didn’t pay him that lump sum, they now owe him $24.75 million. A one-game suspension should cost him about $300,000. Not enough.
Suspend him for all 82 games if necessary. It’ll cost him almost $25 million, including the $1.4 million in fines he accrued in his 14-day training camp holdout. He’ll start to feel that more and more when the mortgage payments on his $17.5 million mansion outside of Los Angeles come due.
Every player who defended him — looking at you, Danny Green, Matisse Thybulle, and, until lately, Joel Embiid — should understand now he was not worth their breath. They should understand now that his selfishness extended far past the basketball court, where he refused to shoot jump shots, refused to try three-pointers, and, in Game 7 of the Eastern Conference semifinals against the Hawks, refused an easy dunk late in the game because he’s afraid to shoot free throws.
Because, you know, he looks bad doing it.
Because, you know, we don’t know basketball, as Rivers insultingly told us twice during that series.
Because, you know, he’s so good at everything else that shooting doesn’t matter, as Rivers told us last season.
Enough.
We’d had enough of T.O. in 2005, when his shenanigans led Andy Reid to send him and his b.s. home.
Enough of this B.S., and his b.s.
We knew Simmons had issues on the court after the 2018 conference semis, when the Celtics refused to guard him on the perimeter, and he made several poor choices, but he was a rookie. You hoped his offensive inclinations would change.
They did not.
He ignored the Sixers’ requests to work with their shooting coach and first hired his own specialist, and then his brother, to work with him.
They failed.
Off the court, Simmons does not engage with his teammates. He surrounds himself in a bubble of friends and family who offer no criticism; sycophants who coddle him and encourage his insouciance.
He has been the same player forever.
He has been the same person forever.
His conduct has been detrimental to this team for years.
The only punishment that fits, the only recourse the team has, is to bench him until he starts to earn his money.