Asked on Thursday about recent reports that stated Ben Simmons wants an offense built around him and doesn’t want to play with Joel Embiid anymore, the Sixers‘ star center was anything but evasive. Embiid provided reporters with a four-minute response, pushing back against the idea that the team has built its offense around him and neglected Simmons’ needs.
“I feel like our teams have been built, whether it’s the shooting needed or stretch five and all that stuff, I feel like he’s always had it here,” Embiid said, according to Kyle Neubeck of PhillyVoice.com. “And we still have it. Seth (Curry), one of the best three point shooters ever. Danny Green, Tobias (Harris) is a 40 percent three point shooter. Furkan (Korkmaz) coming off of the bench. At times Shake (Milton), I think he can be a better shooter, but you know, he can get hot. We just added Georges (Niang). So I feel like, our teams have always been built around his needs.
“It was kind of surprising to see. We’ll say that, even going back to, I mean, the reason we signed Al (Horford). We got rid of Jimmy (Butler), which I still think it was a mistake, just to make sure he needed the ball in his hands, and that’s the decision they made. Like I said, it is surprising.”
Embiid went on to say the situation was “disappointing” and “borderline disrespectful” to the players on the 76ers’ roster whose spots aren’t as secure as Embiid’s or Simmons’.
“Some guys rely on the team being successful to stay in the league and make money somehow,” Embiid said. “Because if you’re on a winning team, you’re always going to have a spot in the league, just because you’re on a winning team and you contributed.”
Embiid did stress that the Sixers are a much better team with Simmons than without him, adding that he hopes his All-Star teammate chooses to end his holdout and report to the club. However, if Simmons was unmoved by Embiid’s more conciliatory comments on Media Day, it’s unlikely that he’ll be swayed by the big man’s more combative response today.
Here’s more out of Philadelphia:
- ESPN’s Bobby Marks (Insider link) took a deep dive into the Simmons situation to try to identify the teams that could use the three-time All-Star and have the right combination of players, contracts, and draft assets to make a viable offer for him. Marks names the Trail Blazers, Cavaliers, Pacers, Timberwolves, Spurs, and Raptors as the six clubs that check all the boxes.
- Without Simmons in their starting lineup, the Sixers will likely sacrifice some size and will be without their top perimeter defender. Keith Pompey of The Philadelphia Inquirer explores the ripple effect of Simmons’ absence, noting that the team is considering experimenting with a big starting lineup that includes Georges Niang. “There’s options there,” head coach Doc Rivers said. “We don’t know if any of them work yet.”
- Since Tyrese Maxey is expected to be part of the Sixers’ regular starting lineup, Shake Milton will be tasked with leading the second unit, writes Derek Bodner of The Athletic. Rivers is pleased with what he’s seen from Milton so far in that role. “You can tell he’s put a lot of work in at that position,” the head coach said. “Last year, honestly, he came into the year and had no idea that he’d be a point guard.”
Embiid hit it on the nail. Simmons is making demands like he thinks he’s James Harden waiting for an opportunity, when he has been given opportunities and even been named an all star. If he wants to succeed he needs to look at how Westbrook succeeded, not make excuses for his failures.
Maybe, but there’s also a lot of speculation going on here. Who’s to say the Sixers aren’t the ones leaking this stuff? Happens all the time. Never trust the media.
In any event, no one is coming out of this looking like roses, and rightfully so.
Westbrook succeeded by playing with Kevin Durant to begin his career! He hasn’t been out of the first rd since and still isn’t guaranteed to do so this year !
You’re half right though russ is a good example of how to get your points while having a jumpshot of all the readers on this website
Here we go. This Sixers team is gonna gradually disintegrate and play way below its potential until it gets this situation taken care of. Which, of course, is exactly what it should have known all along.
They don’t teach that at the Sloan Conference though
No lies at all by Embiid.
Got Al to be a small 5
Got rid of Jimmy cause he was to good and wanted the ball to much
Two really bad decisions
I was always a huge Simmons fan and still am but have been disappointed by his recent moves. I was a firm believer they should build around Ben and trade Joel mainly because 2 reasons. Ben doesn’t have the injury concerns and if he gets a shot he’s going to be the next Giannis.
However Joel hasn’t been injured recently and was playing at an MVP level last year, meanwhile Ben hasn’t developed a shot.
Now Ben is forcing his way out which means building around Joel, to bad it cost us Jimmy Butler to do that.
Hopefully we can still get a good return for Ben and move on past this without to much damage to the locker room which could derail the season.
For Ben’s sake I hope he ends up on a team which suits him also
I used to think that about keeping Ben and maxing value in an Embiid trade.
Hard to say I agree with it now though. Embiid’s current peak is probably higher than Ben’s best case.
Either way they should have traded one or the other, as a post up big man and a non-shooting PG just aren’t compatible in today’s league
Hey Simmons, how can they build an offense around you when you pass up open dunks. The idea of building an offense around someone is that they actually have to SHOOT the ball!
How can a team or offense specifically be built around Simmons,when the man does NOT want to shoot?
How is that possible????
SMH
It’s like building a defense around Trae Young. It makes no sense. The crazy part is that he flat out said he refuses to work to improve himself so he would actually have value! Who wants to trade for a guy more concerned with dating famous women and doing Instagram shooting vids who pouts for months if a coach says he can’t be the star point guard on a title winning team?
Couldn’t say it better… a perfect player for a miserable losing franchise like the Twolves!!
This has been an issue for the past several years…not enough room in the inside for both. If I had choice, I keep Embiid.
YAWN …….
Bottom line is that Simmons trade value is decreasing daily… Sixers have only themselves to blame…. They should have traded him when they had a chance instead of being super greedy.
I mean that or they really believe Simmons is gonna rebuild his value in Philly once he caves.
This is false…
1. Certain players values can only go so low.
2. To assume his value goes lower means that teams are either pulling out of the trade discussion altogether for Simmons or that you think they’re reducing the offer they already made.
The latter is highly unlikely. If a team is willing to offer something for said player, they’d be still willing to offer the same thing if Morey/the 76ers eventually cave and willing to trade him for less. The only way a team wouldn’t be willing to offer the same thing is if some damaging personal info came out in which case would cause some teams to drop out from considering him.
The former is likely but as I’ve stated above… That likely only happens if something truly damaging came out. All this crap in the media are ploys used by agents, players, GMs to change a narrative and push things to go a favorable way for whoever is leaking this stuff, and all the GMs involved, Rich Paul and Simmons know the games are being played. There’s only 2 things that will change momentum.
1. If teams really believe Morey isn’t bluffing and will let Ben sit for the year till he gets the right offer, which might make teams offer more in hopes of finally pushing the trade into action.
2. If Morey believes that no team will offer anything better eventually no matter how long he holds out, which will push him to posture long enough till the season starts then he’ll take the best current offer and try to get that team to add some kind of small piece so it seems like he got something out of the posturing.
I’m sorry, there’s another option… A new team emerges when the season doesn’t go the way they were hoping.
Butler didn’t like Simmons lack of work ethic and knew he wasn’t committed to being great. Jojo is on the dime with his comments and here’s hoping the Sixers hold firm, continue to fine Simmons until this is resolved to their advantage.
Did Butler say that? I would prefer leaving him out of this. I don’t think he liked very much about any of the teams he played for.
Also I think leaving PHL was mostly his idea, not the team’s. They did not get rid of him.
I am quite happy I am not a Sixers fan because that organization is one big cluster f***.
Simmons is an egotistical jerk who hopefully is made to sit out for the next four years.
Sixers fans love Embid but he hasnt won anything…. He will have another season ending injury this coming season.
I mean Simmons does have a point though. When was the last time a center lead his team to the finals & won finals MVP? A team built around Simmons would probably go further(in the postseason) than one built around Embiid.
When was the last time a player who can’t and won’t shoot ( even a dunk) lead his team to a tile and MVP ?
Giannis is a for all intents and purposes a center so…
I knew somebody was going to say some stupid **** like this lol. Don’t feel like arguing, so I’m just going to tell you that he’s NOT a center.
I wouldn’t feel like arguing if I were you either. Giannis’s closest historical comp is Shaq. But maybe he wasn’t a center either.
That might be the strangest comparison I’ve ever heard. At least if you’re talking about watching their styles of play and not just looking at stats. I’m not going to be dismissive, I actually want to know – how is Shaq the closest historical comp to Giannis?
Go to their basketball ref pages and look at their stats side-by-side. The only guys in modern league history averaging 26+ ppg, 12+ rpg, while shooting consistently 55%+ from the floor AND getting to the line ~10 times a night are Shaq and Giannis in their primes.
Different styles. But statistically very similar results.
If you were going to have a comp for Giannis’s on-court effects it would be Shaq. Even Shaq agrees.
I knew somebody was going to say some stupid **** like this lol. Don’t feel like arguing, so I’m just going to tell you that he IS a center.
Giannis is a Small shooting point power center. He literally plays every position on offense.
@Real1
To say a center can’t be the best player on a winning team is silly. Giannis, regardless of what his stated position is, plays like a center., just a super athletic one. AD may not have won the MVP his championship year with Lakers but he was neck and neck with LBJ in terms of importance to the team on both sides of the ball. It wasn’t that long ago that another 7fter,who yeah, yeah, yeah, may have not been a pure center led his San Antonio team to many championships. Tim Duncan. For all ppl blather about Simmons defense, in that game 7 where he held Trae to 5/23 shooting, Trae outscored him 21 to 5 and won.
Your position is who you guard on defense, not what your offensive skill set is. How often does Giannis guard the other teams center? This past season he defended power forwards 40.6% of the time, twice as often as he guarded centers. He’s a power forward. If he could only guard centers like someone like Shaq, the bucks don’t win the championship.
Embiid is worth building around because he’s a legitimate MVP caliber player and Simmons is unlikely to ever get to that level. But you’d much prefer a star wing over a star center if all else is equal. It’s just that between Embiid and Simmons, it’s not all equal. Embiid is a lot better, if healthy.
Pfft, I’d take Giannis over Embiid any day. Hell I’d take Giannis over any player currently active in the league.
Maybe the answer here is “Positions in the modern NBA are more grey than they were in the 90’s.”
In which case saying “Centers can’t win championships” is still an asinine statement.
Not sure I’d agree that who you play on defense is the sole determining factor of position. But Giannis certainly can guard centers (but again how many back to basket centers are there even left in the league? Most teams 5’s are rim runners or stretched out at the 3 pt line).
@sportsguy
Magic Johnson seldom guarded smaller point guards. Does that mean Magic, considered the greatest point guard, isn’t really a point guard?
Embiid stopped just short of calling him what he is a little B. If I were his teammate my only response to him about anything is quit playing like a B. It’s really that simple. Either you’re a B or you’re not. In basketball at any level you know who is hiding and who isn’t. Some dudes want the ball up until 2 minutes, some dudes in the last 2 minutes. Since now they just hack a ben he doesnt want it at all.
Or… stop being so light skinned… he probably listens to Drake ballads pregame too.
Lmao I’ve posted that stance before… 975’s Tyrone has put that out there several times, it’s a viewpoint of more people than you’d think.
This hold out isn’t about money he’s gotten paid. It’s about feelings. They are a title contender with him. It’s not like Harden, that team sucked and had zero title chance. And he didn’t want to play with a hardheaded guard like CP3 or Westbrick anymore. Ben isn’t the best player on the team he’s the 3rd best. And Jo is an MVP candidate. Best player on the team can dictate this narrative, not the 3rd fiddle.
I love how everyone takes these reports at face value when, time and time again, teams or agents are the ones leaking speculation in order to alter leverage. Who is to say the Sixers aren’t doing this now in order to make Simmons look bad?
Would it surprise me if Simmons really felt this way? Not exactly. I just find the naivety a bit surprising with a lot of posturing going on by both sides.
In any event, the one thing I can confidently say is Morey…Embiid….Doc…Simmons…they all deserve each other and deserve to be in this mess. No one looks good in any of this.
For what it’s worth, this was how Embiid prefaced his comments, referring to the reports he was addressing: “I don’t know if it came from him or whatever, but over the past few months stuff has been put out there, looking at the reaction of him not being here. I feel like it’s fair to assume it’s coming from whether it’s his agent or his people or whatever.”
Now they already have a ready-made excuse when they fizzles out in the playoffs – again.
“The Sixers never recovered from the Ben Simmons fiasco at the start of the season…”
What about Fuc Rivers? The worst coach ever… He Is the real responsable for all
Him and Joel put all of the blame on Ben at the end of last season. I don’t blame Ben for not wanting to play for them. Yes, he didn’t play well but they threw him under the bus!!
And Ben without Fuc Rivers was another player… This stupid coach made all the worst for make bad of Ben’s game emerging… Then said in TV ben was a scrub, then now denies he said that…
In any other job he would be fired
Dude he passed on Dunking a ball or shooting in the 4th Quarter in the entire series because he was afraid of getting fouled. He was to blame.
@Maz
No accountability at all for the player huh? Ben scores all of 5 points on 4 shots and you want to blame the coach? smh
Any team that gets rid of Jimmy Butler just to make sure Ben Simmons needed the ball in his hands is going to end up in the exact same situation the Sixers are in now.
Joel Embiid is 1000% right. It echoes what I was saying a couple of days ago here
Doc Rivers is a clown, and Simmons is acting like one. The team is conducive to Simmons playstyle. He starts out at PG, surrounded by shooting, woth Embiid and Harris as their primary half court options, and then he moves to the 4/5 on 2nd units, still surrounded by shooting, and they can get out and run a lot more. The problem is Doc Rivers doesnt know who plays on his team, and in a matchup where they should have had clear advantages, they made things a lot harder for themselves, and actually created more disadvantages. Combining that with Simmons already being less likely to be aggressive, it turned into what we saw…
Fire Doc Rivers. Whether or not that helps this situation, that’s still a win, and if it does help, you ate his coaching contract to alleviate issues with a top player, whose co tract status is exponentially more important. It shouldnt be hard to explain why this team is still good for Simmons basketball wise, if you dont have a clown trying to explain it
All that being said, Simmons is acting like more than a child. To not even be willing to speak to people that co sider him a friend is super over the top. Also, you have 4 years under contract. It doesnt work this way. You dont choose where you are until free agency. That’s why it’s called free agency. If he was so close to having such problems there, maybe he shouldnt have signed the extension, and instead took a qualifying offer to make him a free agent where he could make a decision like that…asking for a trade doesnt mean a team should do it, especially if you cant get back value equal to what you’re sending out, which they couldn’t
#FreeBenSimmons
Boy y’all talk like PHI chose Ben over Butler… unless I am wrong Butler didn’t wanna stay in PHI, he always wanted to go to MIA!
Anyway after the way the city of brotherly hate has treated Ben I really hope they completely implode & become sooo bad that even Embiid wants out of this team & they don’t recover in many years to come, that would be just poetic!
Butler didn’t want to stay because he didn’t know who was in charge. The fact that neither Embiid nor Simmons knew what was going on. He saw the train wreck that was inside the organization. He’s not stupid
And again, you have ZERO clue about how the fans treated Ben Simmons. Stop believing asinine takes written by asinine writers just to stir up nonsense. We didn’t quit on Ben Simmons, Ben Simmons quit on Ben Simmons. He doesn’t want to be here anymore? That’s fine. But don’t stir up BS that it’s the fan’s fault
If Brown was there, they kept Jimmy Tobias and Embiid and traded Ben Simmons at the time, they probably end up with a championship in the bubble or last year. Because Ben had more trade value then. I think it was pre extension so a 7M contract you’d be dealing him for a player and a bunch of picks. They would have added a contract or two to match and been better. Because in hindsight Ben never advanced his game. That’s the luxury of hindsight. Doesn’t help you now by Jo is right… what could have been.
In the bigger picture, Embiid is admitting there has always been conflict in his needs and Simmon’s needs. I think this conflict was the start of Simmons’ dissatisfaction with the Sixers. Thing is, Embiid is valued higher in general, even though from Simmons’ perspective, he is the who made the Sixers a winner not Embiid.
If I recall, Butler left as a FA to the team he was always going to be best for. Never should have been on the Wolves or Sixers, though he does not have to be on the Heat to be on a winner.
Could care less about how this turns out because, frankly, Philly brought this chaos on itself.
I will say this…if Philly continues to use the media and its currently players to “shame” Simmons he will never come back.
Calling him out in public is not a good idea. This will not be resolved soon. Which is in Phillys best interests. Morey is a fool if he thinks he can hold on till Dec. 15. But we all knew, well except Philly fan, that Morey is overrated.
This is the most entertaining part of the offseason.
To me, they should have put a gag order on any Simmons talk before training camp began.
Silence is the best policy here, IMO.
@CF
My gosh. It’s not SHAMING him. They wouldn’t purposely intend to shame him if they a) want him back or b) want to increase trade leverage. Maybe they are being a bit too honest but my God do we live in a world where honest criticisms is bullying? Simmons camp is the one leaking the news because they are using the media to press this discussion. Clearly. They have the most to benefit.
Knicksfan you were wrong yesterday too.
Today was Embiid talking, not Simmons, and confirming their needs are different, like you denied yesterday.
As far as truth goes, everyone will have a different version of it. Most people would say the Sixers have needed better 3pt shooting to advance, not that that area was solid as Embiid is claiming. He said several questionable things, not that that is the issue. The issue is chiming in at all, even with truth, if that was in play, which I doubt.
T pups don’t give up your future. Like 4 first rounders they have asked for. Total B S