Uh oh...Simmons is an asshole

[Irish George]

I covered the Sixers a long long time ago. Most of my contacts from that era are either no longer involved or dead. But I still know a couple of people, one of whom I ran into yesterday.

Apparently Ben Simmons is enough of a douche this is the main reason there is any debate at all about their selection with the top choice.

Paraphrasing: "There is no doubt he is the better player. They have to determine if he is a harmless asshole or a cancer in the clubhouse asshole."

[McCarthy12]

Yup. There are plenty of assholes. Iverson was kind of one. Kobe definitely was one. But those guys busted their tails on the court and they wanted to win. Asshole is ok. Self-entitled, self-centered lazy asshole could be a disaster.

That's Colangelo's job. He got to skip the heavy lifting part of the rebuild so he better get this right. I trust Brett Brown. Not as sure about Colangelo.

[Loki]

I wonder how much of it is being propagated...

by the agent to try and get the Sixers to pass on him.


I wouldn't put anything past some of those guys.

[Irish George]

no this seemed pretty definitive

this guy says there is no doubt he is an asshole. We just don't know what kind.

[Irish George]

agreed

Yup. There are plenty of assholes. Iverson was kind of one. Kobe definitely was one. But those guys busted their tails on the court and they wanted to win. Asshole is ok. Self-entitled, self-centered lazy asshole could be a disaster.

That's Colangelo's job. He got to skip the heavy lifting part of the rebuild so he better get this right. I trust Brett Brown. Not as sure about Colangelo.

I feel OK about Colangelo but agreed on everything else

[Dim Bulb]

maybe he's enough of an asshole

I covered the Sixers a long long time ago. Most of my contacts from that era are either no longer involved or dead. But I still know a couple of people, one of whom I ran into yesterday.

Apparently Ben Simmons is enough of a douche this is the main reason there is any debate at all about their selection with the top choice.

Paraphrasing: "There is no doubt he is the better player. They have to determine if he is a harmless asshole or a cancer in the clubhouse asshole."

to not be able to carry LSU to even make the NCAA. That right there was sort of a red flag to me, but who knows?

[McCarthy12]

Yeah, he's definitely had some success. He was the GM of those Sunset teams that were pretty nasty with Nash and young Amare Stoudemire, right? They got hosed in that San Antonio series. Probably should have won a title that year. It's probably more that I think they did Hinkie a little dirty.

[Ellsworth]

It'll only get 1,000x worse with millions in the bank.

Fact

All
Comes down to this:

Is he an asshole guys will rally around or is he an asshole nobody likes?

Based On LSU's colossal goat fuck of a season I'd bet the latter at this point.

[McCarthy12]

The only thing with that is, you take him off of LSU and they are garbage. That was his biggest mistake. He viewed it as a throw away year so he did his Godfather a solid and went to a third tier program. If he plays for Duke or Kentucky, I wonder if we are having this conversation (maybe we still are, I don't know).

I was looking at his game by game stats and a few things stood out. What's the biggest "effort stat?" Rebounds, right? He had over 20 games with double digit rebounds. He very few poor shooting nights - the bigger knock is that he didn't shoot enough. He had good games in both games against Kentucky, one of which they won.

I'm not trying to make excuses for him because his attitude concerns me, too. But I think the level of player he was playing with every night hurt him. Heck, if he had a decent surrounding cast, he would have averaged close to a triple double.

[Irish George]

I only saw him three times

but the rest of the team was absolute dogshit. Fundamental stuff like standing around on offense and watching #25 like the rest of us. Would have been interesting to see him at a better program.

[Ellsworth]

Yes. I cannot get the image of Simmons 4 point game against a dog shit NC state team out of my head though.

He played 40 minutes and looked Pedestrian. That can happen but he's supposed to be the Mack.

It was early in his college career but he wasn't exactly facing the Kentucky Wildcats.

[Dim Bulb]

weren't they 22-10

The only thing with that is, you take him off of LSU and they are garbage. That was his biggest mistake. He viewed it as a throw away year so he did his Godfather a solid and went to a third tier program. If he plays for Duke or Kentucky, I wonder if we are having this conversation (maybe we still are, I don't know).

I was looking at his game by game stats and a few things stood out. What's the biggest "effort stat?" Rebounds, right? He had over 20 games with double digit rebounds. He very few poor shooting nights - the bigger knock is that he didn't shoot enough. He had good games in both games against Kentucky, one of which they won.

I'm not trying to make excuses for him because his attitude concerns me, too. But I think the level of player he was playing with every night hurt him. Heck, if he had a decent surrounding cast, he would have averaged close to a triple double.

The year before he got to LSU?

[McCarthy12]

Yep, with two starters who subsequently left for the NBA. I'm not saying Simmons did not contribute to LSU's problems last year. His lack of shooting in some games was bizarre. The whole going to LSU thing is bizarre to me, but it's a creation of the dopey 1 yr rule.

Simmons obviously didn't really care about last year. The question is, is that an inherent character flaw to he will take with him to his next team or was he an 18 yr kid who knew that year was bs and acted accordingly.