Ben Simmons

2022 - 3 - 11

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Image courtesy of "NBC 10 Philadelphia"

NBA Rumors: Nets' Ben Simmons Could Return Week After Sixers ... (NBC 10 Philadelphia)

The Nets' Ben Simmons managed to duck playing against his former team Thursday night in Philadelphia, and now the ex-Sixers star seems to really be ramping.

Sixers fans saw it in the playoffs last year, and unless Simmons has become a completely different player I don't see why that would change during the upcoming postseason. I think it will be a slow build for him." "The ramp-up has been the hot topic of conversation.

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Image courtesy of "NBC Sports"

NBA rumors: Nets' Ben Simmons could return week after Sixers game (NBC Sports)

The Nets' Ben Simmons managed to duck playing against his former team Thursday night in Philadelphia, and now the ex-Sixers star seems to really be ramping ...

Sixers fans saw it in the playoffs last year, and unless Simmons has become a completely different player I don't see why that would change during the upcoming postseason. I think it will be a slow build for him." "The ramp-up has been the hot topic of conversation.

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Image courtesy of "Fox Sports"

'What the hell is going on?': Inside Simmons' 'cold' and 'awkward ... (Fox Sports)

'What the hell is going on?': Inside Simmons' 'cold' and 'awkward' Philly homecoming.

“Everyone thought that Simmons needed to get it over with and show up in front of Sixers fans and take the boos. It was everything that Simmons needed the evening to be while the Sixers lived out a worst-case scenario. Everyone was all over him and all they wanted to do all night was boo the hell out of him.” “It just felt like when you’re watching two parents, two sides of a divorce meet up at a family function for the first time. Was that the Nets being ultra-protective. But the security guys are screaming at people: ‘No video, no video’. Was that Ben Simmons saying something? “It was a mental hurdle they felt he had to clear and they did their best to clear it with him.” “The reason they were so locked in wasn’t just: We’ve got Ben’s back. It was an odd scene.” “Specifically, KD and Kyrie knew what they were getting into to, they’d been in that environment before. “Before the game had started, before he had walked out with Patty Mills onto the floor, he was talking to the social media guy from the Sixers and the security guys,” Friedell said. [They were] saying: ‘You quit on us.

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Image courtesy of "NBA.com"

Ben Simmons sits, James Harden struggles as Nets sizzle in messy ... (NBA.com)

The Nets quickly silence Philadelphia's ready reception for Ben Simmons while making a point of their own.

He is paired with yet another perennial superstar in Embiid and in first five games together — all wins — were a honeymoon of equal parts dominance and eye-opening success. By then, Simmons will probably be playing, and he will have to speak, play and win for himself. But such emotion represented the fierce loyalty each team has toward its new star in place of the old one that no longer wanted to be there. Seth Curry turned and talked to his former teammates on the Sixers bench after drilling yet another 3-pointer, a reminder that he might not have been pleased to have been so readily included in the Harden-Simmons trade. “We definitely felt like Ben was on our heart,” Irving said. Why spit in the face of Sixers fans? Their performance was a glaring contrast to their own decorated former teammate, James Harden. The former Kia MVP, who played all of 16 total games with both his co-stars in Brooklyn, shot a wretched 3-for-17, including 0-for-10 inside the arc. “It just felt good to quiet all of them down midway through the game,” Durant said. “It was very quiet towards the end. The three-time All-Star is continuing to recover from a back injury that has sidelined him since being swapped for Harden in a blockbuster deal at the trade deadline. The avalanche of boos that greeted him was every bit as loud and relentless as expected. His new Brooklyn teammates applauded the crowd’s effort, all of them smiling and laughing because by then the scoreboard had rendered Philadelphia’s famous scorn irrelevant.

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Image courtesy of "The Guardian"

Ben Simmons' Philadelphia return was the NBA at its soap-operatic ... (The Guardian)

Making his first appearance in Philly since demanding a trade last summer, Ben Simmons watched as the Nets dismantled the Sixers with shocking ease in a ...

And with the Sixers holding near the top of the Eastern Conference standings, there’s a reasonably good chance these two teams could meet in the first round of the playoffs. Even after the proceedings had long since gotten out of hand with eight minutes left and the Sixers down 30, the building exploded in another round of thunderous boos when Simmons stood up from his seat to retrieve a dead ball for the referees. All of it has informed the divorce with a particularly acute pain. Simmons had no interaction with any Philadelphia player – hardly a surprise amid this week’s legitimately hilarious news that he changed his phone number without telling anyone on the team – though he did say a quick hello to Sixers coach Doc Rivers before the start of the second half. And not because the game itself was in any way competitive, for it certainly was not. It was the type of night that only the NBA in all its soap-operatic, meme-friendly, hyper-petty splendor can deliver.

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Image courtesy of "The Washington Post"

Ben Simmons, a chorus of boos and the downside of NBA power ... (The Washington Post)

It's hard to chant at Ben Simmons when you're losing by that much,” Kevin Durant said after Simmons's new team blew out his old team.

As he walked off the floor for the final time, most of the 76ers fans had already rushed to the exits. If they qualify for the play-in tournament, the Nets also have a high probability of facing Toronto, where Irving isn’t allowed to play. In the end, Simmons won because he got away from an environment that had soured his love for the game. When he last played in this arena, in Game 7 of last season’s conference semifinals, Simmons’s fear of shooting in the fourth quarter — either because he didn’t want to miss or didn’t want to get fouled and miss free throws — was so glaring that he passed up an easy dunk or layup. Intentional or not, Simmons, who has said he is nursing a back injury, had the best possible reintroduction to Philadelphia. With no pressure on him to perform, he heard the boos only sporadically during timeouts. In a sports town that can be unmerciful in its vitriol, Simmons, traded from Philadelphia to Brooklyn last month, fist-bumped his new teammate Kevin Durant. Then he began rebounding and passing to fellow Australian Patty Mills. A few fans shouted, “He won’t shoot,” to some laughter.

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