The bridge between Ben Simmons and the 76ers is completely burned down and will (probably) never be rebuilt. We know that. It’s been that way ever since he showed up to practice with Philly last year.
But that hasn’t stopped anyone from continuously revisiting the ground it once stood on.
The latest person to go there is Doc Rivers, who talked about the Simmons situation at length with Vince Carter on his show. Rivers said he had a conversation with Simmons to peace things up between them. Not a “long, long” conversation, but a conversation nonetheless. And, apparently, the two are good after it.
But still, all these months later, Rivers is somehow deflecting blame in the situation. He claims his “one comment” about Simmons had “nothing to do” with why the former 76ers point guard wanted to leave.
There were problems that existed way before Rivers became the coach there, he said, and that was the bulk of it.
“That one comment thing had nothing to do with why Ben wanted to leave. Alright? Let me just say that. It was a lot of things as Ben told me and publicly now that happened long before I got there.”
He’s talking about his comment that he didn’t know if Simmons could be a championship-caliber point guard after the 76ers lost to the Hawks, of course. He then spent months backtracking and snapping at reporters for bringing it up.
Now, he’s saying it had nothing to do with the situation which seems pretty odd considering Simmons decided he wanted out in the direct aftermath of that statement and their loss.
Look, Rivers definitely wasn’t entirely to blame with the Simmons drama. He may not have even been high on the list of people to blame for it. But there’s absolutely no way that comment had nothing to do with it. Nothing? Come on. That’s a bit hard to believe.
One day, maybe we’ll hear all about how things transpired and know exactly what happened from Simmons himself. Until then, though, I’d take this with a grain of salt.