NBA training camps are set to begin on Tuesday, September 28, but one notable player missing from camp for the Philadelphia 76ers will be Ben Simmons.
All offseason long, Simmons and the 76ers have been batting heads and between all the drama ensuing between him and the franchise/fan base after the Sixers lost their playoff series to the Atlanta Hawks, Ben Simmons, and his agent Rich Paul wants out of Philly.
The 76ers have been looking all offseason long for potential trade packages to unload Simmons and the four years, $146.6M remaining on his contract, but they have been unable to get the return they would like.
Daryl Morey and the Philadelphia front-office are asking for an All-Star-level talent and key players that can help them right away instead of young assets and draft picks for Simmons, which they absolutely should given that Ben Simmons is a 3x All-Star, but the only problem is that no other team in the league has been willing to offer this up.
LATEST NBA NEWS & RUMORS: Ben Simmons Rejects 76ers’ Last-Ditch Effort To Salvage Relationship
With the season less than a month away now, no team is going to want to drastically change their roster by giving up one of their best players for a player like Ben Simmons, who is being labeled a “project” by many around the league.
While he has struggled offensively from time to time, Ben Simmons is still a former No. 1 overall pick that has the potential to still be an elite two-way player in this league. It may take time, but with him being one of the top defensive players in the league, plus being a skilled 7-foot facilitator/ball-handler, there are a lot of things Simmons can do for a contending team right now.
Philly has made their intentions clear that they would like to keep Ben Simmons right now and have him report to training camp, likely so they can try to increase his trade value again, but Simmons remains adamant on not showing up. This game of “cat and mouse” is about to get a lot simpler, especially when the 25-year-old does not show up to training camp this upcoming week and begins getting fined.
LATEST NBA NEWS & RUMORS: Ben Simmons Rejects 76ers’ Last-Ditch Effort To Salvage Relationship
On Saturday, multiple reports surfaced about Ben Simmons not only declining to talk to 76ers management, but refusing to meet with some of the players on the team who were getting ready to fly out to California to talk with him. This whole situation seems very irreversible from the Sixers’ point of view, which leads us to believe that Ben Simmons will be traded at some point before 2022.
If he is going to sit out through preseason and then into the start of the regular season, the Philadelphia 76ers will not be left with too many other choices than to just take the best deal on the table for him, especially since they want to remain a title-contending team against the likes of the Brooklyn Nets and Milwaukee Bucks in the Eastern Conference.
This trade could very well end up including three, maybe four different teams, as trading a $30M+ salary is never easy for any team, but let’s take a look at a couple of scenarios that not only could make sense for the Philadelphia 76ers involving Ben Simmons, but three trade packages many would surely be interested in seeing happen.
