Ben Simmons gonna lose a whole lotta money this season…
Could go north of 31 mil by the end of the season. Astounding.
Kobe did his “I’m pissed at the front office and I don’t like this team at all!” correctly. Simmons just sounds more and more like an out-of-touch buffoon whom I want no part of as a Laker. Kobe got paid, played his way back into the good graces of the fanbase, and helped add a defining aspect to his legacy in the doing. Ben looks and sounds like a teenager who had the wifi locked on him by his parents.
I’ll bet he skips the rest of the Philly games he could ever play in for the rest of his career. Klutch not looking too smart, either. Anyone who thinks Simmons not playing a single minute is a way to bolster his trade value is insane purely because of the gaping holes in his game on offense. It’s real easy t forget the intangibles a guy brings when you don’t see him bring them. You look at stats and the stats say “pass”. Oh but he’s under contract for like 3 more seasons and we gotta tip toe around his ego like a teenager coming home late from prom? lol, whatta joke…
Morey will get close to what he wants this summer after so many disappointing and injury-riddled aspects of the season. He’ll either end up in Portland or Sacramento, I bet. Hate living in a Podunk burg like that and make life miserable for whomever traded for him. Repeat of this season… but the team who traded for him now looking for an ever more meager haul because everyone will realize he don’t care about hooping.
If hooping was in his blood he’d have pulled a Kobe. Public statement in front of his locker in earshot of his teammates “I’ll go play on Pluto.” type thing, city might even still respect him for getting up and going to work like the rest of us everyday. Ben is currently “teaming up” with a lot of clothes brands. Gotta pay that mortgage and those car payments, amiright Ben? Oh, he also managed to tweet that we all deserve equality. Awesome bro, making the most of your time, I see.
Hooping ain’t in his blood, he’s willing to sit and watch his team put on an absolutely heroic regular season performance without him. If he becomes a Laker I’ll be taking a break, he’s a joke whom I want no part of. That’ll be the final straw for me and Rob Pelinka, as well. Russ may not be the best Laker ever but the dude hasn’t shied away from jack. He takes his lumps, over and over and over to the point I wish he didn’t need to take so many lumps. Don’t see Ben weathering this kind of shot storm of a season like Russ has. Russ, who has barely played with the two guys he wanted to come and play with, who has been tasked with leading a mess of old guys to a playoff spot. Sorry, just no comparison between the two when it comes to heart and character.
Give me guys like Caruso or Stanley Johnson over a “talent” like Simmons; guys who haven’t had the road paved with gold for them just to throw it all away in a fit of pique. Guys who understand what punching a clock and working for some scrap of recognition means. Give me guys who can’t stand not to hoop, even if it means playing with people who you’re not overly fond of. What’s that old saying? Where there’s a will something or other…
So here’s my very short and direct open letter to Ben Simmons, which he’ll never read:
Hey Ben, quite a year, huh? Look I know you have nothing but time so I’ll make this short. An estimated 52.9 million Americans (that’s roughly 1 in 5) suffer from mental illness. The same percentage affects the Australians of the country you were born in, about 4 million (again, about 1 in 5). If you are truly one of them then please, for you and your family and friends, go and get the actual help you need. There will be ways to make money, heck maybe even find your way back to NBA basketball. Just retire and end the drama with your former team. Jim Brown did it and was forever a hero to his community and an advocate for the health of athletes everywhere. He put his money where his mouth was. You could be an even better advocate for athlete mental health than Jim or Kevin Love because you’re young, you understand Twitter and things like that way better than those guys ever will.
If it’s about the team and the mental health thing is an excuse and/or a mechanism by which you hope to recoup some money via arbitration this summer…well…frankly that’s just about the most pathetic thing I’ve ever heard, dude. Follow in the footsteps of just about every pro athlete ever and complain about work while also doing your job. You know, like the rest of planet Earth does every damn day. The person who deserves better owes it to themselves to do the work the right way, to make a stand for something the right way and, in this scenario that person is actually you. Ben you deserve better than what you’re doing with your time right now. Be a man or be an advocate. Don’t be a whiny little bitch, we all know how those kind of people end up, eventually.
I, at one point, had a decent amount of respect for your game. That has gone now and I hope you can earn it back. Not on the Lakers, mind you, but somewhere, somehow. Whether it be in sport or the real world you can be a better version of you than you are choosing to be right now. Also, and I’m sure you realize this, you’re throwing away the equivalent of the GDP for many small countries. Just another thing to think about, bud. Hope you figure this out and make the right choice: get the help you actually need or go to work.
Your pal, Jamie
Yes JS, but???? : (
Rob gonna be fired along with Frank this summer for this sad state of affairs DJ. We ain’t trading our broken poker chips for a new RV with all the bells and whistles. We either gird our loins and get it done in-house or it ain’t getting done.
Ben Simmons fixes nothing for the Lakers. Just makes them look more like the tools of Rich Paul and unable to figure out how to win without him. Jeannie won’t like that look, although seeing how they treated Jerry West makes me wonder a whole lot about what’s going on behind the scenes these days…
Incredible that the team has fallen so far, so fast and with so much pedigree (granted most of it is well-aged pedigree) on the roster but that’s were we be.
Wow, just wow! What a way to nail it, Jamie. My goodness! The only thing I would like to add is you are being very generous to mention Kobe’s name alongside a buffoon like Simmons. But the message is clear and resounding.
As I was reading this magnificent post my mind keeps drifting to a Latrell Sprewell situation. A miscalculation on Simmons’s part could cost him his career and wealth. If this is not resolved now, which is looking less and less likely, there will come a point of no return. He could simply find himself out of the league.
As you stated, I too wouldn’t want him on the Lakers, and that’s even before this fiasco was set in motion. I wish him the best but he better make hay while the sun shines. Sometimes the door of opportunity can slam on you faster than the speed of light.
100% Buba. He’s lost control of basically the entire situation. What leverage he thinks he has/had evaporated long ago, in my opinion. The summer could see something shake loose but I, for one, applaud what Morey and the 76ers are doing as an organization. It rubbed me wrong, and frankly still does, the way AD forced his way out of New Orleans. In that situation at least the team and AD came to the conclusion that his playing would be a distraction and they would hold him out of home games and ultimately the rest of the season once it had gone down the drain.
The76ers are doing just fine without Ben Simmons so it’s not like he can say he’s the difference between a non-playoff team and a contending one, he’s not. If anything it would seem he made it harder for Joel Embiid to excel although JE’s health has always been a huge issue.
The length of his deal is a turnoff, he hasn’t played so we can’t see all the wonderful work he put into year 3 of him working on his jump shot and so on. You’re obviously not getting a competitor because he’s A) not playing and B) is shy about shooting pretty much any shot. He’s terrible from the free throw line. You’re basically getting a Tony Allen skillset without anything close to a Tony Allen mentality or fire.
What’s amazing to me is just about everything he’s done has made it harder for him to get what he wants. Not playing, taking the mental health issue to absurd lengths in order to keep a shred of hope of recouping some of his money
Hard pass on Ben. Like you said, if he makes hay somewhere else I will happily tip my cap and wish him well. If he’s truly suffering I hope he gets real help. If he’s faking I have absolutely no pity for the guy. I’ll be very curious to see how the arbitration process for him will go this summer. As I understand it he’ll have a chance to litigate whether he is owed some or all of the money that’s been withheld (which is why the 76ers are putting it in an escrow account and not banking it) but I’m not sure who arbitrates that. The league? A neutral 3rd party I would hope since you can imagine the league would be behind the 76ers stance. Regardless I hope the process is both thorough and fair. Don’t want anyone to suffer, also really really really don’t like quitters.
“The76ers are doing just fine without Ben Simmons so it’s not like he can say he’s the difference between a non-playoff team and a contending one, he’s not. If anything it would seem he made it harder for Joel Embiid to excel although JE’s health has always been a huge issue.”
Well said, Jamie.
I’m amazed at the vitriol fans have for Ben Simmons. I’d love a shot at getting Ben on the Lakers because we would then have three legitimate defensive stoppers who could guard all five positions at all three levels of the court.
What we’re seeing is the continued evolution of player freedom from the professional slave market being deployed by Rich Paul. Anthony Davis, Ben Simmons, John Wall. All three players who want for whatever reason to take control of their careers and play where or for whom they prefer. Ben’s willing to pay the fines. John just wants to play. And AD got where and with whom he wanted to play. All of us would want the same in our jobs.
I look at Simmons and Wall as opportunities for the Lakers and Klutch to continue their partnership. Player freedom for Klutch. NBA championships for Lakers. Westbrook for Wall or Westbrook for Simmons are almost too logical not to eventually happen.
I also believe we’re all fans of the Lakers and not any one player.
As I understand it, a contract is a mutually agreed upon arrangement whereby one side delivers a product, services etc. and the other side pays for them.
This quote of yours: “What we’re seeing is the continued evolution of player freedom from the professional slave market being deployed by Rich Paul. Anthony Davis, Ben Simmons, John Wall.”
Is. Absurd.
AD at least worked with the Pelicans to something that, sorta kinda, worked to the benefit of both parties but it still rubs me wrong to this day. Houston told John he would not be a major part of the rotation and he agreed to stay away from the team in order to rehab and look for a potential landing spot to his liking.
Ben bailed. He issued an ultimatum, the 76ers called he and Rich’s asinine bluff and now both Ben and Rich likely stand to lose come coin in the doing. AD is lucky he signed his extension after winning a ring. He ain’t been great since, that’s for sure.
free a·gent
/frē ˈājənt/
noun
a person who does not have any commitments that restrict their actions.
a sports player who is not bound by a contract and so is eligible to join any team.
I dunno, maybe Ben and Rich shoulda thought harder, like a lot fucking harder, about where and with whom Ben would want to play for the 4 years he signed for. It’s not a goddamn yacht club where you just pick whom you want to drink with, they made a choice.
Slave markets??? jeeeeeezzzzzzuuuuuuusssss…
Take any business you want on planet Earth. Literally any other business and if someone signs a contract but then skips out on their end they get their ass handed to them in court. But poor, woebegone Ben Simmons and Rich Paul are tied to the whipping post and lashed in the face of their freedoms?
How is an NBA GM supposed to function if you sign a guy for 4 years, then he goes “Golly…you know what I don’t really want to play here anymore. The salary, of course, is wonderful and do let’s keep that aspect of our tidy little relationship going. But the part where I show up and do stuff for that money…you know, I’m good on that. Good luck and keep mailing dem checks boy-o!”
That is just the biggest helping of poppycock horseshit I can imagine. Truly.
Like an Uber driver says there gonna pick you up. See’s a high society well-to-do type person across the street from you and leaves your ass on the side of the road. That’s the “slave market” world you seem to be really excited to see the NBA enter.
Astounding.
You can’t call yourself a professional and not fulfill your contract. As hard as it is to win in this league, it makes no sense to want Simmons.
This is what happens when you let a buffoon like Rich Paul handle your affairs when he no longer has the threat of Lebron NOT considering your team as a free agent. At this point, teams won’t be falling all over themselves to give out max money to Lebron or any of the Klutch circle of mediocrity.
I want no part of this dude and I’ve felt like this all the way back to how he conducted himself at LSU. If he has some type of mental illness then that’s not a whole lot different from having bad knees or chronic back issues…wouldn’t touch a player with that injury history either. My guess is that he’ll get a chunk of that money back in arbitration if he can show he’s being treated for any type of mental issue.