Free Ben Simmons. Please, please, please free Ben Simmons.
What’s that? You say that Brooklyn Nets coach Steve Nash said Sunday that his team wasn’t going to trade veteran guard James Harden, the Sixers’ apparent target in a Simmons trade? And that ESPN’s Adrian Wojnarowski, still the NBA’s foremost information guy, reported Saturday that Kevin Durant wants Harden to stick around – and that Woj believes there’s “still a real good chance” that will be the case after Thursday’s trade deadline?
OK, but let’s not forget that The Athletic’s Shams Charania – no slouch himself – has reported that the Nets are open to dealing Harden, amid reports that he wants out and is unhappy with the burdens being placed upon him (not to mention the reality that he has yet to sign a contract extension beyond this season). Charania added that negotiations between Brooklyn and Philadelphia are expected to be ongoing.
So much poker, so little time. And at some point, the Nets are gonna have to know when to hold ‘em, know when to fold ‘em, know when to walk away, know when to run.
The Sixers have been in that mode for a long time when it comes to Simmons, and understandably so. Guy doesn’t wanna shoot, indeed can’t shoot. Not from 3, not from the foul line and certainly not in the fourth quarter of a tight playoff game.
So yeah, it’s long past time to fold this hand, and reshuffle the deck.
While I have questions about the wear on Harden’s tread – he turns 33 in August – as well as his ball dominance and indifferent defense, I suspect that he would be a dynamic pick-and-roll partner with Joel Embiid, who is amid an MVP-worthy season. Moreover, there is the prospect of Harden, a nine-time All-Star, being rejuvenated by a reunion with Sixers president Daryl Morey, for whom he had previously thrived in Houston.
Morey had dangled Simmons in a potential trade to the Rockets for Harden before last season. That fell through, and Harden wound up in Brooklyn instead, as part of a potential superteam with Durant and Kyrie Irving. That hasn’t worked out, and in the meantime the Sixers-Simmons marriage has unraveled.
It was apparent the two parties needed to begin seeing other people late in Game Seven of a second-round playoff ouster against Atlanta, when Simmons passed up a sure dunk in favor of passing to Matisse Thybulle. Simmons’ thinking appeared to be that he didn’t want to get fouled, as he missed 30 of 45 free throws in the series, and indeed he didn’t attempt a shot from the floor in the fourth quarter of the last four games.
Translation: The guy, while always flawed, now appears to be broken. Nor does self-awareness appear to be part of his toolkit. ESPN’s Ramona Shelburne churned out a long, detailed piece about L’Affaire Simmons last week, which included a nugget about Simmons being peeved that Embiid ripped on him after the Hawks series, when he, Simmons, did not bury Embiid after the loss to Toronto in the 2019.
That can be recalled as the high-water mark of the post-Process era, as the game was decided by a miraculous buzzer-beater on the part of Kawhi Leonard, who then proceeded to lead the Raptors to the title. And indeed, Embiid’s numbers were unremarkable in the series, except for this one: The Sixers were plus-89 with him on the court, minus-108 when he was not.
Rip on him? Shoot, they shoulda erected a statue of the guy.
Anyway, we know where things stand now with Simmons, and indeed where they have stood since the beginning of the current season: He has mostly kept his distance from the team (though Shelburne reported that he does work out on his own in the Sixers’ practice facility), in hopes of forcing a trade. And Morey has said he will only peddle him for another star, while also insisting he is prepared to wait until the summer before making a deal.
In the meantime, the NBA rumor mill has overheated, as there has been talk at various times (and with varying degrees of veracity) of Simmons going to Minnesota, Portland, Washington, Cleveland, the LA Lakers, San Antonio, Sacramento, Atlanta, Toronto, Indiana and Golden State.
(My least favorite rumor? To the Lakers for Russell Westbrook. An Embiid-Westbrook combo wouldn’t have worked, and Westbrook is clearly on the downside anyway. My favorite? To the Kings for a package that included a promising young guard named Tyrese Haliburton. Kid’s already good, and would be even better with a decent team.)
But we are left, apparently, with just the Nets. And that’s fine. Seven years ago, former Franklin & Marshall star Chris Finch, now the T-wolves coach and at that point a Rockets assistant, told me that Harden was “one of (his) favorite players in the league,” because of his explosiveness and resourcefulness.
Harden might not be that guy anymore. While he is averaging over 22 points a game this season for the Nets, he is shooting just 41.4 percent from the floor, his worst marksmanship since his rookie year (2009-10), and 33.2 percent from the arc, a career low. He is also attempting eight free throws a game – a prodigious number, but over two fewer than when he was in his heyday with the Rockets.
He represents the best possible outcome for the Sixers in this game of liar’s poker, which really and truly needs to end by Thursday. It’s high time they walk away, high time they run.