With the All-Star break having just commenced, the Philadelphia 76ers have very little reason to breathe during their week-long sabbatical. After all, with the team still trying to qualify for the postseason, they have a ton of homework to do in light of their putrid 20-34 record, which has them stuck at 11th place in the Eastern Conference.
The 76ers have seen some silver linings thanks to their new faces following the lapse of the trade deadline, but team-wide results have remained poignant. Philly has lost five straight outings, and most of those losses came against cellar-dwelling or disadvantaged teams. Clearly, at this point, the squad barely resembles anything close to a playoff team.
Indisputably in need of external help, Philadelphia’s brass should already have their eyes set on maximizing whatever opportunity they can get out of the buyout market. So far, the 76ers have had no traction on that end, but if they want to salvage their season (and given that the do not want to tank anyway), they must double down on winning by having, well, win-now players aboard.
The 76ers were rumored to have been interested in signing Ben Simmons from the buyout market
We may have jumped the gun, though. Apparently, at least according to some well-merited insiders, the 76ers actually did register some level of interest on one of the best names available for taking in the buyout market.
As per Jake Fischer, Philly looked into the possibility of reuniting with and plucking Ben Simmons away from the market — a pretty ironic development given the unceremonious way the former All-Star exited from the franchise.
Instead, not long after finalizing a buyout agreement with the Nets, Simmons went on to sign with the Clippers, where he immediately enjoyed an impressive outing.
Had the 76ers managed to reunite with Simmons, the optics would have been pretty wild, to say the least. While there is some credence to justify pursuing him, should they really run the risk of disrupting the team’s dynamic on and off the court? After all, his relationship with Joel Embiid and the entire franchise has been neutral at best, and that is being conservative at that.
The Philadelphia 76ers have been terrible on nearly all fronts this season, and their reported pursuit of Ben Simmons is definitely pretty telling of the desperate situation they find themselves in. Hopefully, the team can go after another needle-mover in the buyout market to clear all of these up.