NBA veteran torches 'difficult' Simmons

1 year ago 79

Veteran 76ers guardant Georges Niang has taken a swipe astatine Aussie NBA prima Ben Simmons' drawn-out departure from Philadelphia.

The defender was traded to the Nets successful February past twelvemonth pursuing a long-running saga with the franchise.

Speaking connected 97.5 The Fanatic's The John Kincade Show, Niang said the sound surrounding his erstwhile teammate's commercialized created an "uneasy feeling" among the team.

Asked astir the quality betwixt the Sixers' existent roster and past year's team, Niang said helium had "a batch to say" astir the 2021-22 season.

"Ben Simmons benignant of handicapped america astatine the opening of past year," helium said.

" … I wasn't going to accidental it, but you cognize what I mean … When you look astatine gathering rosters similar I'm talking from similar a wide manager standpoint, I don't cognize however overmuch helium makes, but it's a max contract. So, you instantly instrumentality that disconnected the books, I'm not playing. Now you person to fig it retired wherever different relation players person to measurement up and regenerate the passing, dribbling, rebounding, defence."

One of the show's hosts past added, "You forgot shooting," to which Niang replied, "Exactly, that's my point".

"So you know, to person to bash that and you know, I deliberation radical don't understand, the squad facet is precise important," Niang continued.

"I deliberation (Sixers caput coach) Doc Rivers does a bully occupation of similar buying into the team, and truthful erstwhile you don't cognize who you're going to person nighttime successful and nighttime out, is helium coming back? Is helium this?"

"I consciousness similar the updates that we were getting astir him was similar erstwhile I turned connected my TV, I was listening to Stephen A. Smith, and helium said he's gonna beryllium astatine signifier tomorrow. And I was like, well, determination helium is and truthful past twelvemonth was hard due to the fact that you didn't cognize who you have. Then, the commercialized deadline is coming up and everybody's walking successful like, well, who's being attached to him? That's going? So it was conscionable like, you had that uneasy feeling."

Simmons sat retired the remainder of the 2021-22 play with a herniated disc. He besides cited intelligence wellness issues successful Philadelphia.

The 26-year-old has struggled offensively during his archetypal play connected the tribunal with the Nets, averaging a career-low 7.0 points connected 56.7 percent shooting, 6.3 rebounds, 6.1 assists and 1.3 steals per game.

Simmons' reluctance to sprout oregon spell anyplace adjacent the rim has forced Nets officials to trim his playing clip from 20 minutes to 16 minutes to 13 minutes implicit the past 3 games.

The Nets are expected to look astatine trading Simmons successful the off-season.

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