Ben Simmons has been public enemy number one in Philadelphia ever since he decided not to dunk a basketball in Game 7 against the Atlanta Hawks.
Since then, Sixers fans have been clamoring for the team to finally move on from Simmons and trade him for another star. Damian Lillard, Bradley Beal, De’Aaron Fox. It didn’t matter. Just get someone else in there.
Simmons is reportedly on board with whatever, too. He’s reportedly told them he doesn’t plan on showing up for training camp at the end of the month and wants out.
He doesn’t even care where he goes, per Fox Sports’ Chris Broussard. He just wants to be away from the organization.
But despite all of the vitriol coming Simmons’ way, he’s still got one more defender in Philadelphia, apparently. And it’s Joel Embiid.
Embiid took to Twitter to defend Simmons and downplay any rift reported between him and his co-star that people may be talking about.
He also called out 76ers fans for pushing Simmons away, saying “y’all also gotta be better.”
From my own experience, y’all have no idea how much this media makes up stuff for followers and shame on you for believing them.
— Joel “Troel” Embiid (@JoelEmbiid) September 1, 2021
I haven’t forgotten but 2 years ago, I got booed, people in Philly wanted me to be traded. I even shushed them. Only the real ones didn’t but I just put the work in that offseason to be better cuz I knew I wasn’t playing up to my potential. Philly fans, y’all also gotta be better
— Joel “Troel” Embiid (@JoelEmbiid) September 1, 2021
He pointed out that, while he loves criticism and can take trash talk from Sixers fans, everyone doesn’t take it the same way.
For clarity, I love the criticism, I love when I’m told I can’t do something. It makes me work harder to prove everyone wrong but not everyone is built like that.
— Joel “Troel” Embiid (@JoelEmbiid) September 1, 2021
This is all a pretty strong defense of Simmons from Embiid. The All-NBA center seems to be deep in his point guard’s corner right now, though it seems the relationship between Simmons and the team is beyond repair at this point.
Embiid’s tweets feel too late here. Especially considering that he was one of the folks who pinned their Game 7 loss on Simmons back in June.
Full quote from Joel Embiid: "I mean, I'll be honest. I thought the turning point was when we — I don't know how to say it — but I thought the turning point was just we had an open shot and we made one free throw and we missed the other and then they came down and scored…
— Rich Hofmann (@rich_hofmann) June 21, 2021
He wasn’t wrong about that. Simmons passing up a wide-open dunk was a turning point in the game. But that’s also something that should probably have been kept within the locker room. It ended up stoking the flames to get where we are now.
Embiid’s tweets are a nice gesture. But this isn’t going to change anything related to Simmons’ status in Philly. He’ll be traded at some point regardless of how Embiid feels.
And maybe it’s for the best. Maybe they were never a good fit together in the first place.
It’s just a shame that we couldn’t see them work out as a pair on the court the way we wanted.
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