The Philadelphia 76ers dropped their third and final home game to the Atlanta Hawks in the Eastern Conference semifinals, losing Game 7 of the second-round series 103-96. In the team’s last 70 home games, the Sixers are 61-9. But the old adage holds true. Playoff basketball is different than regular season basketball. Some guys (Joel Embiid) are built for both, others (Ben Simmons) are not. After passing up a wide open dunk attempt with three minutes to go in the fourth quarter and forcing it to a doubled Matisse Thybulle, Joel and the city saw enough from Benjamin ‘Fraud’ Simmons. Embiid threw his arms in the air in disgust, and confronted Ben immediately following the play in disbelief.
Simmons is a 6-foot-10 point guard from Melbourne, Australia who is generationally wealthy. There’s a chance working on his game might not matter to him. Ben Simmons’ 34.2 percent free throw percentage this postseason is the worst in NBA playoff history. Not only was his shooting horrific, he refused to take more than five field goal attempts a night. Point blank, scared to shoot the basketball.
It could be because he’s right handed! He finishes at the rim strong or with finesse with the right hand every time. He threw a perfect strike at Citizen’s Bank Park with his right hand, he plays billiards right handed, makes all his full court passes right handed, and his shooting coach is his brother, not an objective entity. All of these excuses matter not, because even if he is right handed, he wouldn’t shoot come game time anyway. He’s admitted to struggling with accountability in the past, and you can tell Embiid, like the rest of us, is fed up.
Ben Simmons pulled another disappearing act in Game 7. Is it his last in a Sixers uniform?
In seven NBA seasons, Embiid has participated in five which have now gone to waste. His prime is being thrown away by an arrogant 6-foot-10 fake All-Star. The fact that Philadelphia had the opportunity to snag James Harden and pair him up with Embiid and did not will forever haunt me. Now that the world knows how much of a liability Ben really is, we won’t get near a James Harden caliber of player. That was the best thing we could have ever gotten for Ben. The process worked. Drafting Embiid made the Sixers annual contenders — the problem is he has no help. This city has been starved of a true point guard since Jrue Holiday back in 2012.
Pair a guy up with Embiid that can actually run a pick-and-roll and won’t back down from taking shots. I am not surprised by the outcome of getting bounced in the second round because we knew how bad Ben Simmons was come playoff time. But I am disgusted the Sixers are wasting the prime years of the best center I’ve ever seen play.