There has been so much attention given to the Philadelphia 76ers when it comes to the Ben Simmons situation and many are just waiting for the two sides to finally part ways.
At this point, the biggest question is no longer whether or not the Sixers will ship Simmons out — they crossed that bridge a long time ago and it doesn’t seem like there’s any turning back. The Sixers have maintained their two stances that they would either like Simmons to return to the team and play or they will only trade him for a top 25 player.
During an appearance on 97.5 The Fanatic, Philadelphia president of basketball operations Daryl Morey said his team could afford to accept less of a haul for Simmons because of how well big man Joel Embiid is playing right now.
Embiid is coming off a 50-point game and is averaging 28 points and 10.6 rebounds per game.
Morey was also asked about his recent meeting with Simmons’ agents over at Klutch Sports:
“I think action comes from dialogue and that meeting was really about getting the dialogue to a better place and that’s continued. My conversations with Ben Simmons, Rich Paul, his agents, Elton (Brand) our conversations, you know, I’m not going to get into specifics, but there’s been more conversations with Ben directly said been more conversations, I can tell you for sure that those conversations have not progressed. As anyone knows who’s dealing with a difficult situation like we are, you don’t make progress without first having a foundation of dialogue and that’s where we’ve gotten to and we need to continue that and hopefully those get somewhere. We shall see.”
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Morey was then asked about the fan frustration when it comes to the Simmons saga.
“The one thing we’re in agreement on is we would like a win-win trade. A trade that helps the 76ers, it’s most likely going to help Ben in his mind and what his goals are and we’d like to accomplish that by by the February 10 deadline. If we don’t, then I think this foundation that we’ve established, we’ll see if that can help us work through things if there isn’t a trade. Trades are hard to do. It takes two, right? That’s again why I feel the fans frustration like just get a deal done.
Well it takes two sides, right? In this case, it’s probably going to take three sides, it’s probably going to take multiple teams, and whenever you’re involving a big trade with multiple teams, the odds of those deals happening are just low and so I think I feel the fans frustration.
They went through so much pain to get Joel Embiid, a great player, to get Tobias Harris, to get Ben Simmons to get this foundation that gave us a real chance last year, which we sort of blew and we should’ve gotten to the conference finals if not farther. I feel that frustration. I know it. They went through so much to get these players together and to have one of them say I’d rather be somewhere else, that sucks. That sucks for everybody, but it’s important that we deal with the reality and like try and maximize from here.”
Philadelphia is 26-18 on the season and in fifth place in the Eastern Conference.
