The Philadelphia 76ers and Ben Simmons could not come to any type of agreement during the 2021-22 season and it was time for both sides to move on. Simmons wanted a trade in the offseason while the Sixers still wanted him to rejoin the team and after a long standoff, the trade finally prevailed.
President Daryl Morey and the Sixers waited and waited as they wanted one of the top stars in the game for Simmons and they finally got their wish when they acquired James Harden from the Brooklyn Nets. The Sixers sent Simmons, Seth Curry, Andre Drummond, and two first-round picks to the Nets for Harden and Paul Millsap.
Looking back at Simmons’ time in Philadelphia, it was filled with a lot of questions, but it was also filled with a lot of regular-season success. The Sixers were constantly near the top of the standings in the East and they earned the No. 1 seed in the 2020-21 season, but they couldn’t get it done in the playoffs where Simmons had his struggles there.
Still, Simmons is an elite defender and playmaker and Morey hopped on “The Colin Cowherd Podcast” to say this about Simmons and the trade:
I think what you’re describing is why we loved Ben Simmons. Like, he is a very good player like that is why we we would have preferred this didn’t happen. It obviously happened, but having his ability to rebound, set the pace, deflections, I mean, he’s an unbelievable defender. So lots of reasons why. Look, it was a win-win trade. I take a step back, and you know this Colin because you’re a student of multiple sports, the trade is sort of a North American creation. That’s not totally true, but it’s mostly true. It’s mostly big in North America. It’s not really something big and the other sports that are big in the world, and some people question like ‘Why do you have trades? It’s weird’ or whatever. Adam Silver should be so happy. You couldn’t design a better reason for a trade than what just happened. Two players who wanted to be in a new situation, who are extremely good players, who will play very well in the other place and not that this place. If this isn’t a perfectly designed trade where both us and Brooklyn can get better, and the rest of the East I think is nervous right now. Both of us are a lot better and the rest of the East did moves and moves that improved them, but not like the sort of significant moves that Brooklyn and we did.
The Sixers won’t be able to see what Harden can do for them until after the All-Star break as he nurses his hamstring injury, but Curry and Drummond have made an impact in Brooklyn as they have helped the Nets snap their 11-game losing skid and they helped rally the Nets from being down 28 to win on Wednesday.
This post originally appeared on Sixers Wire! Follow us on Facebook!
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