With the NBA postponed, it’s hard not to think about the impacts it will have on the recovery of the Philadelphia 76ers’ star point guard.
It’s obviously not a good thing that the NBA had to pause its’ season due to the coronavirus outbreak, per Adrian Wojnarowski of ESPN. With the season currently postponed, their has to be positives and negatives that come from it that will affect every NBA team, with the Philadelphia 76ers being no exception. One thing that has to be reviewed will be how this suspension of play will impact the recovery of Ben Simmons.
It should be noted that before getting into this discussion, the most important thing is the health of the players, coaches, employees, and fans. The coronavirus outbreak is a pandemic according to The World Health Organization and should be taken seriously.
To quote what my fellow Co-Site Expert of The Sixer Christopher Kline wrote in regards to the games being postponed;
"“At this point, however, Simmons’ injury timeline is a secondary concern.”"
This is true, especially with the future of the season being unknown. It’s also something that shouldn’t be ignored either.
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Currently, the Simmons still recovering from a nerve impingement in his back and won’t even be re-evaluated until the beginning of April, per Tim Bontemps of ESPN. Before games were postponed, Simmons was at least going to miss most of the regular season. With the league suspending play for at least two weeks, according to Brian Windhorst and Tim Bontemps of ESPN, Simmons might not miss nearly as many games if he’s healthy by the start of April.
Another thing to consider is that the NBA could decide to suspend play for much longer than just two weeks. That’s was just the bare minimum time period and there’s a real chance that it extends past two weeks. Instead of weeks, this suspension of play could a month, if not multiple months like what happened with the Chinese Basketball Association (CBA).
If that were to happen, then the Sixers would feel no pressure to bring Simmons back before he was completely healthy. Which could be ideal for Simmons, but a long layoff may not be good for the rest of the Sixers amd the NBA as whole. Still, getting Simmons’ back completely healthy would be one positive the 76ers could take from this unfortunate event.
It’s disappointing that the Philadelphia 76ers won’t be playing games right now, but it’s the right call by the NBA to stop games from being played based on these health concerns. Still, the silver lining is that this stoppage of play may allow Simmons to regain his health without missing a significant amount of games.