The Philadelphia 76ers are currently in a big standoff with star guard Ben Simmons as they continue to try and navigate through a wild situation. Things took another turn on Friday when the Sixers withheld the $8.25 million owed to him as they prepare to punish the guard for not showing up.
The Sixers might be at a point where they just want to move on from Simmons as this situation continues to become more and more of a distraction. They want to get fair value in return for him, but they also don’t want a big problem that continues to grow and grow.
Therefore, the Sixers might take a lesser deal just to move on from him and ESPN’s Brian Windhorst believes the Indiana Pacers can offer a solution. ESPN’s Bobby Marks put together a list of teams and as Windhorst pointed out the Pacers on “The Jump”:
I think the sleeper team in this whole situation is the Indiana Pacers. First off, I know that they don’t have an All-NBA player to trade, I realized that, but they have a bunch of really good players, and as Bobby illustrated in that list, they control all of their picks. That is not like the Portland Trail Blazers, they don’t control a trade like a package of players and picks the a team like Indiana can plus Kevin Pritchard likes to trade for guys who are under contract. They know that they’re never going to be a free agency destination so when they trade for a guy like Victor Oladipo or they trade for a guy like Caris LeVert who has a bunch of years left, they like that. They love the idea of being able to trade for player like Ben Simmons, who they would have team control over it makes a lot of sense, especially because with as much talent as they have and as much money as they’re spending, I still think they’re just in the middle of the pack in the in the Eastern Conference and they’ve got a premium coach now in Rick Carlisle, you can try to add a premium talent there. I think they are sitting there waiting for the Sixers to come to terms with make the best deal they can, because I think they can put forth an offer that few teams could rival.
Simmons is attractive for the smaller market teams because he will be under team control for the next few seasons. That is going to be very attractive for some teams like the Pacers who want to make a big splash. They do not have a legitimate game-changing All-Star or anything, but they do offer a lot in the way of picks and solid players in exchange for Simmons.
Either way, this will be an interesting next couple of weeks for the Sixers. They take on the Toronto Raptors on Monday for their first preseason game and if Simmons is not there, they can continue to fine him until he does finally report to the team.
This post originally appeared on Sixers Wire! Follow us on Facebook!
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