The Philadelphia 76ers have seen not just one, but many of their previous players face brutal setbacks in their careers during this offseason. With the pool of talent being as deep as ever, they have found it difficult to crack rosters and convince teams to ink them to new deals.
That has most prominently been the case with Ben Simmons, the three-time All-Star who is seeing his career slowly fade into the unknown. It has been a downward spiral for the former 76ers star since his fall from grace during the 2021 NBA Playoffs, which was also the final time he looked like a functional, high-caliber player.
Last season, Simmons split time with the Nets and Clippers. Whereas Brooklyn handed him a major role in their rotation, LA was a different story for him altogether. He found himself languishing on their deep bench, before effectively getting sequestered during the postseason with Ty Lue and his staff not really finding a suitable role for him.
That is precisely why it was far from surprising that not a lot of teams registered interest in the former 76ers star. While there were some offers, Simmons' camp found them to be too subliminal. Lo and behold, he remains without a team for the upcoming season.
Former 76ers star Ben Simmons receives unexpected support
The narrative around Simmons has definitely become a sour one, with the huge majority pointing to his mental and confidence issues as the primary reasons behind the preternatural speed of his decline.
However, Michael Porter Jr. seems to think of the situation differently, doubling down on the fact that aside from those mental challenges, part and parcel of what made Simmons the player he is now is plain and simple –– injuries.
"No, he had one or two of the injuries I had. I’ve had three of them. So I know—it’s not that he doesn’t want to hoop, it’s the fact that those injuries are serious injuries."
Indeed, everyone is too caught up with the cold narrative engulfing Simmons that the simplest fact has evaded many. To this day, Simmons is far from a healthy cog, as his back injuries have become too chronic to even contemplate a situation where he is fully scot-free.
This was unexpected from Porter, though. He is most definitely known as one of the more frequent conduits of glib and hogwash takes, but this time, it seems like shared experience proved to be just too potent for him to dish out another baloney.
But going back to our point, Ben Simmons is still crippled by the same issues he had way back when he played for the 76ers. Unfortunately, that remains the status quo, so everyone should probably keep that in mind.