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The Philadelphia 76ers have been expelled from the NBA playoffs when they drop in Game 7 for the Atlanta Hawks at home on Sunday. Since then, of course, there has been a lot of finger pointing and a lot of discussion about who is blaming after the premature end of the season.
The person who has failed to suffer criticism has been All-Star guard Ben Simmons. The 24-year-old guard had just five points out of four shots in Game 7, and he’s still become small in big moments for Philadelphia.
On top of that, Simmons shot just 34.2% of the wrong line throughout the rest of the season when coach Doc Rivers hesitated to take him off the floor because he had the ability to make a big impact on the game. According to the Hall of Famer, that was a mistake.
Scottie Pippen sat with GQ magazine and he was asked about Simmons, and he had this to say about the failures of Philadelphia:
I watched a lot of games that Doc [Rivers] shouldn’t have been him in the last quarter. If I give you a deck of cards and give you a heart and a diamond, and we call Spades, why do you keep those cards when you know you’re losing in that class? This boy has been like this all along, and Doc brought him in and set him up for failure. He has been like this! And you know he’s been like that. And Doc continued to play him, he continued that the team was breaking him. Take him out of the game! The Lakers did it with Shaq, and he’s bigger and more dominant and probably more fearless than Ben Simmons. Doc made him a failure.
Having said that, Pippen also admitted how good a player Simmons is. He is 24 years old and has played the All-Star game three times while being named to the All-Defensive First Team twice. He is such a good player.
Pippen added:
He is still a good basketball player. That’s his weakness: basketball shooting. If you take it off from Ben Simmons, he had no weakness. That is also Giannis’ weakness. But Giannis doesn’t care about humiliation. That’s the difference between him and Ben Simmons. Giannis goes to the free throw line and shoots two hell balloons and next time comes straight to the field and tries to drop you. If Ben Simmons fails a free throw, he starts throwing it before reaching the free throw line at the other end. He didn’t even want to cross the halfway with basketball because he was afraid of humiliation by going into that mistake. That’s why he didn’t try to make it from scratch at the end of the game. He’s been doing it all year, brother.
Joet expressed faith in Simmons at the end of the season and has a plan to help him heal. Philadelphia doesn’t trade with Simmons just to do it because of its tremendous ability. The right package needs to be included so that President Daryl Morey can really consider moving on from him.
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