Matisse Thybulle, JJ Redick discuss Ben Simmons, Sixers standoff
Philadelphia 76ers star Ben Simmons has had himself a tough offseason where the 25-year old has undergone some serious criticism for his poor playoff performance and the team has been taking trade calls on him all summer.
Now, Simmons has requested a trade of his own and has told the franchise that he does not intend to play another game for the Sixers. He also does not plan on showing up to training camp which begins on Tuesday to prepare for the 2021-22 season.
Therefore, Simmons and the Sixers are in a standoff to see who blinks first in this situation and it is tough to see for one of the game’s bright stars.
To discuss Simmons’ situation, Matisse Thybulle hopped on former Sixers guard JJ Redick’s podcast “The Old Man and the Three” and Thybulle defended Simmons a bit for him passing up a dunk in the Game 7 loss:
He was thrown under the bus. You asked me if I had been booed or people been mad at me, I made the foul that lost us the last game, and I received almost no…there was a little bit on Twitter, but like the Ben hate was so much louder…just build the frame of reference, like I lost us the game in which lost us the series, and no one really spoke about it, but they wanted to talk about the passing up the dunk and passing it to me more than my foul. Anyways, but I think that both sides, play a decent role in it, right? Like, neither sides really helped themselves through the situation. Whoever started it, whoever’s making it worse at this point doesn’t really matter but, either side has played a pretty decent role in the situation that we find ourselves in right now and on a human level as like his teammate, like, as a friend. You hate to see people put in this situation that’s so heavily covered by the media, because people lose sight of this human aspect of all of us as athletes, especially in these times, especially in controversial times where we’re looked at as like as a commodity. I don’t even know exactly like what people consider us in these moments but it’s not as humans, and I just saw on a personal level I really do feel for him because this would suck for anybody.
Thybulle has a good point that he committed a critical foul late in the loss and he has not received as much criticism on it as Simmons. However, Simmons is supposed to be one of the main guys for this franchise and he did come up short yet again in the postseason.
Redick, who played two seasons with Simmons, added this about his former teammate:
I’m friends with Ben and I had him as a teammate and loved him as a teammate, he probably could do more to help himself. Especially ingratiate himself a little bit with certain people. But I also think that it’s like, it’s one of those things that comes with playing here and comes with being a max player. I guess my problem with the entire situation is that I feel like, I’m going to defend Ben a little bit. I’ve said this on the podcast before, I feel like at times people just can’t appreciate Ben for who he is as a player like we can’t appreciate Ben’s greatness for Ben’s greatness. That’s not to say he’s blameless in any of this, but we haven’t gotten to the point where like Ben is a great player, here’s what he’s great at, let’s just appreciate that. We want to nitpick the things that he doesn’t do that we all want him to do and I don’t think that’s fair to Ben. Again, Ben’s not blameless, but I don’t think that’s been fair to Ben.
No matter how this situation ends, there is little doubt about Simmons’ talent. He is one of the top players in the league as he can do so many terrific things out on the floor, but his offensive weaknesses have seemed to catch up to him and that is something that will hold him back wherever he goes next.
This post originally appeared on Sixers Wire! Follow us on Facebook!
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