The Philadelphia 76ers and Ben Simmons remain in a standoff. There seems to be no solution in sight as Simmons remains away from the team without a timetable to return to the court.
Given how hard teams around the league are being hit by positive COVID-19 tests, the Philadelphia 76ers would probably love to have Simmons return to the team. After a strong 8-2 start to the season, Philadelphia has cooled off considerably, as they are currently 18-16 and sit in sixth place in the Eastern Conference.
Getting Simmons back in the fold would certainly help the team climb back up the standings as they have been shuffling their lineup constantly with players in and out. Head coach Doc Rivers recently entered protocols as well, which will complicate things as well.
At one point it did seem that Ben Simmons was nearing a return to the court. He reported and went through the steps to become eligible to play again. The team stopped fining him, believing they were all on the same page.
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Alas, things didn’t pan out as expected. Simmons didn’t participate much in practice, which led to him being thrown out of practice. He then said that he had a back injury and needed to mentally prepare for a return.
That caused more frustrations from the Philadelphia 76ers’ perspective, as Simmons was not forthcoming or working with them on a plan to improve his mental and physical health. As a result, the team began fining him again and he has racked up quite a bill since.
Simmons’ fines are exceeding the $10 million mark as he has been fined 28 times thus far this season. All but one of those fines have been for $306,305 and labeled as an off-court/off-field violation. The reason listed is for not cooperating with team doctors and not participating in basketball-related operations.
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The fine that wasn’t that expensive was on October 19th for conduct detrimental to the team, stemming from when he was kicked out of practice.
Given how much money he has already surrendered, it is hard to imagine that Ben Simmons is phased by the fines. He is as dug in as the organization is and there is seemingly no light at the end of the tunnel in this situation.
