There seems to be more drama surrounding the Philadelphia 76ers and their latest visit to Barclays Center to face the Brooklyn Nets on Jan. 7. The Sixers had to stay overnight in New York after guard Seth Curry tested positive for the coronavirus and they had to undergo the league’s protocols for health and safety.
However, a report came out from Chris Haynes and Vincent Goodwill on their podcast “Posted Up” that Ben Simmons left New York on his own. The Sixers then had to call him back to New York due to the contact tracing and things of the like.
Goodwill reported:
What I have gathered was that Ben Simmons left New York that evening. He left New York and went to Philadelphia. Gotta…apparently probably he hired a driver from a service…..the team clearly found out. Here’s the one thing that we do know, Chris, because of the restaurant protocols and everything else that certain restaurants in places that you can’t go to. There are no restaurants in New York City that are approved [by the NBA], so if a team is staying in New York City they need to stay there. Apparently Ben Simmons said, ‘Nah, I’m out’…I’m headed out, got a driver, went back to Philly. I believe the team found out. And I believe team security, as you know, team security knows these things, they’re like the CIA, you know what I mean? They know what the writers are doing. This is like some serious stuff. So, they find out, Ben Simmons has to come back…and ‘magically’ he ends up on the injury report the next day, not playing’. Now, who knows how you want to connect the dots.
Coach Doc Rivers was asked about what happened before the team took on the Miami Heat on Tuesday back at home.
“It wasn’t reported the way it sounds,” said Rivers. “Obviously, that night we were all in disarray. A bunch of guys were ordering cars because we all did think we could go back home. Ben was on his way, I called him, and told him he couldn’t because of the protocols and he just turned around and came back.”
The entire night was, understandably, a bit overwhelming for everybody involved. Once Curry was found to be positive, the team had to wait for guidance from the league on what to do next.
“It wasn’t even a mix-up,” Rivers added. “There was no up. We didn’t know anything at the time. Even I was ordering a car. We didn’t know what we could do the next day. We thought we could leave and get tested at home. Then we were told we could not do that. After that game, it was a lot of different moving parts going on at the same time.”
This has been a wild week for Philadelphia as they continue to work through the league’s health and safety protocols. The hope is that they can get everybody back in a timely manner and the healthiest they can be.
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