It's September 2021. What one player would you trade for Ben Simmons?

they would need to... trust the process

Embiid does feel like a player where when he starts going downhill, it's going to be pretty severe

roy hibbert vibes

yeah the injuries could start to pile up on him any time

otoh he's a much, much better player

i think we need to acknowledge that the issues with ben simmons have moved beyond "plays the wrong position" to "literally scared to shoot when it's important"

embiid and simmons are both extremely flawed dudes to be the main dude of a team imo

with joel it's kind of worked for a little while but, like, he gives off the most "any day now...." vibes of any player i can remember

also he just falls down so much

oh for sure. and i'm skeptical of embiid at the highest levels even if he's healthy. but at least his production suggests that it could happen with the right ecosystem and some luck. the team with ben simmons as its best player is like a 38-win team.

yeah embiid is a legit dominant player, simmons could be really good in the right situation

simmons fits easily with pretty mich any other star player so long as theu can shoot. embiid locks you into playing big and he is going to insist on getting his shots the way he wants them

biggest problem with embiid is he doesnt have the stamina to play his best game for four quarters, and his not best game isnt really that good, hes really only great when hes playing super physical

he needs to not play more than like 34 minutes per game

Simmons would blend well with KAT

yeah he would

lots of potential recovery vibes, simmons could be around someone who had an infinitely worse year than he had and is still plugging hard

The Athletic weighs John Wall and finds the trade-offs wanting.

You’ll hear some people say that Wall is a more willing outside shooter than Simmons as a way to justify the trade, but he’s nowhere near being a competent shooter from deep, having shot just 32.3 percent from 3-point range for his career and just 34.4 percent on jumpers off the catch last season, a key skill set when projecting a fit alongside the post-heavy Embiid. Wall might take more of those shots than Simmons does, but nobody’s actually defending him out there. The same spacing problems would persist, just in a much older, more expensive and more injury-prone package, and without Simmons’ world-class defense.

At his peak, Wall was a respectable midrange shooter, shooting 36.9 percent on jumpers between 16 feet and the 3-point line from 2012-13 through 2018-19, with a couple of seasons pushing the 40 percent mark. Wall struggled last year in that regard, making just 31.5 percent of his 2-point jumpers beyond 16 feet and just 30.6 percent on jump shots off the dribble.

There’s some reason to believe those atrocious midrange shooting percentages will bounce back, and the midrange jumper is a solid skill set for a high-usage point guard to have. But it needs to be used as a counter to a defense selling out to take away a more efficient bedrock skill. An occasional midrange jumper makes sense if the defense is doing all it can to run a guard off the 3-point line or is deathly terrified of his ability to get to the rim. Obviously, Wall was never Steph Curry on the perimeter, so it was the latter that defenses were worried about when they decided to concede the midrange jumper to Wall in his prime.

But what would happen when Wall could no longer get to the rim at will, or if he started to struggle to draw contact and finish efficiently inside? That concern was always there as Wall aged. It’s even greater now that he’s 31 *and* has a history of lower-body injuries that includes significant injuries to his knees, heel and Achilles.

Wall shot just 56.8 percent on shots inside of 3 last year, according to Basketball-Reference, the lowest of his career. Those shots accounted for just 29.3 percent of his field-goal attempts, which is below his career average as well. If Wall were 26, it might be easier to be optimistic that, now in his second year back from injury, he’d bounce back to his career norms, but it’s far from a guarantee given his injury history and age, and without that ability to put pressure on the rim, even a return to form as a midrange jump shooter isn’t enough for Wall to become an impact player once again.

In addition, the Sixers could only take back around $39.5 million in 2021-22 salary by trading just Simmons, well below the $44.3 million Wall is owed for this year. There are some creative ways the Sixers can add more salary and get around that, but having so much money tied to two players (Wall and Tobias Harris) who have negative trade value would be very limiting for future deals. The financial inflexibility would almost require you to believe that Wall is the missing piece to help Embiid get past the Brooklyn Nets and Milwaukee Bucks, and there isn’t enough data to support Wall at this stage of his career being that kind of player.

All of this makes relying on Wall to be an impact player from here on out a massive risk, and one that doesn’t make sense for the Sixers to take, at least not without very significant draft compensation coming back in return. The Sixers would need draft picks to entice them to take on Wall’s albatross deal, and they’d need further draft picks to entice them to give up their All-Star in Simmons. And even then that may not be enough if the Sixers aren’t willing to gamble on an impact player at the deadline.

There are a lot of stat nerd types who think Simmons is a top 15 player but I’ve just never gotten it

Like I’ve never watched him and thought “this is the best defensive player in the NBA” and he’d pretty much have to be to justify the ranking he has from these guys

he's made back to back all defense first teams... last year he was on 100 out of 100 first place ballots, and the year before he had the second most first team votes after giannis. last year he finished second DPOY voting, the year before he wasn't in the top 3 which doesn't line up w/ the all defense voting but whatever. in any event, lots of ppl even beyond stat nerds overwhelmingly view him as a top 5 defensive player at worst and a top 2 defensive player at best.

i'm not sure i agree w/ that either but it's not really stat nerds voting for those awards. i think for me it mostly comes down to effort. he has the size & athleticism to be that kind of defender... he was giving trae young major issues even just trying to dribble the ball normally in some of those playoff games. he just doesn't seem to have the consistent intensity you would want to see imo to really be a game wrecker the way that draymond or whoever is

btw i heard that last year of simmons 325 made FGs, 315 came from inside the paint. center ass stat if i've ever heard of one

simmons is at least an excellent defender but im not sure if hes more super versatile and very solid or truly dominant, he definitely doesnt seem dominant idk

and even the statiest nerd admits that defensive stats arent that good so i wouldnt look to them to delineate this issue

he’s great on ball, not much of an off ball team defense guy.

roy hibbert vibes

simmons is at least an excellent defender but im not sure if hes more super versatile and very solid or truly dominant, he definitely doesnt seem dominant idk

This is my view. He’s a v good defender 1 to 5 and a great one when he wants to be but I don’t feel like he locks dudes up as often as I would like given his obvious gifts.

He’s not just a 1v1 defender either. At times Doc would play a zone and Simmons and Thybulle would wreck shit in the passing lanes, but for some reason they didn’t play zone very often. Doc may not like it I guess, but that seemed a good use of those two.

he was top ten in steals must have some team defense chops, and yeah if he gets in the passing lanes that makes dunks, which is good

would be cool to see him on fast swarming defensive team

he's made back to back all defense first teams... last year he was on 100 out of 100 first place ballots, and the year before he had the second most first team votes after giannis. last year he finished second DPOY voting, the year before he wasn't in the top 3 which doesn't line up w/ the all defense voting but whatever. in any event, lots of ppl even beyond stat nerds overwhelmingly view him as a top 5 defensive player at worst and a top 2 defensive player at best.

i'm not sure i agree w/ that either but it's not really stat nerds voting for those awards. i think for me it mostly comes down to effort. he has the size & athleticism to be that kind of defender... he was giving trae young major issues even just trying to dribble the ball normally in some of those playoff games. he just doesn't seem to have the consistent intensity you would want to see imo to really be a game wrecker the way that draymond or whoever is

It's October now and this has gotten even stupider. Wise move is likely a series of cash + trade + second/third tier guys between multiple teams but i still find the original question interesting. At this point, who is a guy with rising fair value to get this behind philly and help them heal faster and for the receiving team to get an elite player with a ton of question marks to add to a still stabilizing roster.
Today I'm going Jordan Poole.

lol morey will die before trading ben simmons for jordan poole, im sure they have much better deals on the table already

Still think a deal built around Dejounte Murray makes a lot of sense

i just wonder if they're looking for more shooting

then again the intractable issue that i see when it comes to the simmons trade is finding a team that is willing to trade away shooting in exchange for perhaps the single worst shooter in the league. so maybe a player like murray who can't really shoot (from 3) either is an agreeable middle ground

yeah, i think thats where this is. the big fish are realistically off the board (dame, beal). still think that brogdon would be perfect for them.

There's been a ton of posts by flaky Sixers instagram accounts about Brogdon and/or Lavert for Simmons.

the consensus among pacers followers is that these rumours (or leaks) are coming from the sixers fo

It seemed optimistic to me. One might not be enough but two seems too much.

thats how id assess it.

this is going well

just tuned into 'the game' it looks like the bucks are continuing their strategy of being better than everyone

perhaps kyrie and ben could just trade teams once a month for sightseeing purposes

Get ya Ben Simmons dick head shirts🗣 pic.twitter.com/FFX4OH9fHc

— Tori Lahren (@Tori_Philly4) December 9, 2021

oh christ, i just saw who i was retweeting, never mind

I don't think there is relation to Tomi?

Vaccination cards needed to see the Sixers or the Flyers play.

Y’all ready to revolt yet orrrrr you think this is normal? pic.twitter.com/P5q3RsggoJ

— Tori Lahren (@Tori_Philly4) December 13, 2021

idk i wouldn't be so sure

anyway, ben simmons dickhead shirts

I guess the parents would do that huh

It's January 2022 and this seems like a reasonable offer to me? It gives the sixers good depth for a legit push to vie for the east and i don't know what else they think they're getting.

https://www.si.com/nba/76ers/news/nba-rumors-pistons-jerami-grant-package-ben-simmons-sixers

bw this detroit offer and the potential sacramento deals i dont know why he would wait out an entire season of joel's likely short prime other than him being a stubborn fool

I guess I might do that and then when it doesn't work and Embiid is done in 4 years Morey can do Process 2.

If Process 2 is working 1 day per week on a Ringer podcast

remember when ben simmons had trade value

truly a cautionary tale about being a huge loser

yikes

https://www.nydailynews.com/sports/basketball/nets/ny-ben-simmons-bench-role-20230213-x6qmhfoborawdkygyfi226wx3q-story.html

Simmons says he has “no idea” what his role will be moving forward with this new-look team.

“Everything’s been changing all year, so it’s hard to really understand what’s going on, but hopefully we find some rhythm and consistency,” he said after shootaround Monday morning. “It’s different. It’s a different experience (coming off the bench). So whatever the team needs from us to win, I’m willing to do that.”

Simmons said his back and knee aren’t currently giving him issues.

He underwent an offseason back procedure, which he says had compensatory implications on his left knee. He has missed two different stretches of games due to the left knee — first a four-game absence due a lateral left calf strain, then another four games due to a subsequent bout with knee soreness — with both stretches coming after playing in both games of a back-to-back.

Simmons says he has not had any additional fluid drained from his knee.

“It’s getting there,” he said with optimism. “I’m able to play. For me, that’s a lot. So I’m good.”

Holy shit this is so fucking funny, ben simmons photoshopped the fuck outa himself to post on insta and fake looking swole pic.twitter.com/mSpIA9HYKI

— Nuggets stan Jonny (@jonnyschaab) August 19, 2023

lmao

so savage

What a weirdo.

he looks really good in the unedited photo that's the weirdest part

also I'm not sure putting on muscle helps with that whole"shooting the ball and having it go in the hoop" thing

Every summer with the Sixers he would post these workout photos of him taking all these jump shots (including 3s) and then the season would start and 90% of his shots came from within 5 feet of the basket.

all things are possible in nba summer