The tragedy of Ben Simmons 

Ben Simmons, Killian Hayes and Josh Giddey is a hilarious list even without context

People chalk it up to the mindset but listening to him last offseason he really did seem to acknowledge his shortcomings and what he needed to be better and more assertive about, it feels like just as his maturity has caught up its now his body that’s lacking, as opposed to a few years ago where he seemed immensely talented but immature. Sucks, back injuries are devastating

As a Sixers fan, it's just unbelievable how bad it turned out. From Bynum bowling to Fultz getting TAS to Ben dodging the defensive all-star Trae Young in the playoffs to even those four bounces against the Raptors, it's comical how poorly each facet of things have gone.

Trae young is such a generational defender, he single handedly destroyed Ben Simmons's whole career 😂

injuries dont make you a 33% ft shooter. that's a motivation problem. and the motivation problem makes people question the legitimacy of his injuries.

As someone who rooted for the sixers during his tenure and he was one of my favorite players coming into the league, he wore on me to the point of exhaustion because, as you mentioned, it wasn’t just the lack of improvement, it was the lack of accountability for his shortcomings, and in fact the bratty defensiveness when it was brought up. He seemed to think he was a perfect basketball player without anything to improve on despite his faults coming to bite the team in the butt over and over and over. And then, with all due respect to mental health, he had the audacity to scream victim when after *YEARS* of the same s**t his teammates publicly called him out. And instead of taking it as constructive criticism to improve himself, he cried his way out of the city to somewhere people wouldn’t criticize him as much. I feel bad for his recurring injury problems but his career was over long before those showed up and it was all of his own doing unfortunately. Nobody to blame but himself.

Im in the secret third camp of ben simmons opinions, im impressed he was able to earn that much money while doing so little work. It is legitimately impressive how little work he's done and how much money he's been paid. AND TEAMS WILL GIVE HIM MORE MONEY NEXT YEAR IN FREE AGENCY!!!!!!!!!!!

If by “too unique of a player” you mean missing gaping parts of a basic nba skill set then yes Kofi he was too unique for coaches to game plan around

The moment that I believe put out the perception that Ben Simmons was out of it was that iconic image of Simmons sitting at the bench during that Celtics/Nets playoff game a couple years back. Just the sight of him just stone faced, apathetic, and just accepting that the team was gonna get swept in attire that made him stand out. There were analysts and pundits all angry at Ben for not making an attempt to try and support the Nets, like actually getting back out to play just for an opportunity to get one win in the playoffs.

Gannis won a ring because he has 20x’s the heart Ben has

Simmons was real nice when he was healthy 😢

Dude never took his game seriously and only gave a damn about the likes, jewelry, cars and the women. I seriously believe that it has caught up with him and he doesn’t he know it SMDH.

Man to make a long story short Ben Simmons was too busy being a kardashian instead of trying to develop a jump shot. He was too arrogant

The process drafted 4 bigs

From one Pistons fan to another, it's such a shame Killian Hayes could never figure out scoring, because his passing was so good. :( Back injuries suck.

I know that Ben Simmons was a terror on the fast break but I don't remember if he looked as lifeless in the half court as he did in Brooklyn. The 4 shooter thing would not have worked if there was not another high level playmaker on the floor.

From what I see, everyone grew enamored with the 3pt revolution and Ben was initially unaware, & then unwilling to deal with the pressure of being the last of a dying breed. We may never see someone who cannot shoot get the opportunity to orchestrate an offense. You either sit back on him or hack him if he drives & it’s unfortunate. The only two skills he lacked coming out of college were the ability to shoot and he lacked self motivation/awareness. Was good to great at almost every other offensive and defensive skill but the moment he started questioning his body, everything else snowballed. Embiid reached such a level that teams no longer said “let Embiid beat us” simply bc he was ACTUALLY capable of doing it; Ben never quite got there offensively, and that exacerbated the problem. It’s as if he got the Yips; doesn’t matter how much you shoot in practice if your team, the opposing team, the whole arena, and everyone online is looking at every miss like it’s the end of the world. The rim will always look small, the ball uncomfortable, & words unforgiving when everyone sees you as failure or disappointment whether you try or whether you don’t

as someone who does play basketball in there early 20s and has suffered nerve impingements in my back, i completely empathize with ben as i know what what it’s like and the level of fragility you feel when trying to get back on the court. you feel hyper aware of all your movements and are just afraid of doing anything to mess it up even more

Starting from his Year 2 Rookie Year I felt like Ben Simmons was athletic Draymond without the grit. I felt he was crazy overrated and those Jalen Rose was on point saying he wasn’t a PG & there’s a reason he never played PG at LSU. As his career has fallen apart I’ve started rooting for him hard while everyone laughs at him. He tried to hide has sadness with sunglasses & fake bravado but you can tell he’s broken (physically & mentally). In hindsight he was a good (not great) player but for whatever reason his pride stopped him from working on that jumper and how the athleticism is gone. 😞

It sad seeing someone blessed with so much talent for a profession that they don't love.

Love your vids man. Keep going. Sitting at my layover rn long day and this shit is exactly what I needed

The Ben Simmons train has completely flipped & it shows everything wrong with NBA media coverage. No one had any problem disrespecting Ben Simmons when he played for Philly. No one wanted anything to do with his excuses or explanations every off-season & no one actually believed the infamous “off-season 3pt workout” vids he always posted. But now that he plays on a different team, it’s “oh poor Ben Simmons 🥺 he’s so misunderstood, it’s actually because of his back injuries!! And his trauma!! A-a-and his coaching!!! And he had to play alongside Joel embiid!!!!!” The narrative completely flips when a player leaves Philly

Kinda acknowledged this in the video, but the thing I think about with Ben Simmons is just how much his early-career playoff appearances shaped his story. Not even the performances, just the fact that for a lot of NBA fans who only tune in for the playoffs, he was way more of a fixture than you'd expect from a guy at his point in development. Like, if he'd been languishing on the Kings for those years, getting a lot of hype and then falling off but not showing up in big playoff matchups, I think it would've been really different. Not better, necessarily. But he would've been so much lower on the general NBA Dan's radar, and that might've protected him in ways that could've been beneficial to him. Counterpoint, dude's jumper would not have improved with the 2016 Kings' training staff, lol.

imo Simmons is like a high-level Markelle Fultz. i think they're both guys who have been kind of unfairly taunted and could perform to the hype of us nerds if they weren't both daunted by injuries, outside expectations, and maybe a little self-doubt. We were all frustrated with "Shoot The Ball Ben!" era Simmons but knowing he was worried about his body crumbling on a layup adds a meaningful amount of context imo

Some people become professional athletes primarily because they want to provide for their families, and their chosen sport is the best skill they have to do it. Others do so because of an intrinsic love for the sport and competition, or the history, the legacy of the whatever whatevers. Then there are players like Benjamin Simmons, who are more in love with the lifestyle that a professional athlete can live rather than the sport itself. That's fine, by the way---provided it doesn't become obvious. Provided that you do what you need to do when you're on the clock, and lead your team to victories within whatever role you have. Simmons forgot this at some point. I don't know when, but at some point, he forgot. That's when you know you have a dud of a player. Can't stay healthy, can't help a team, doesn't provide passion. A liability to coach around. Keep in mind that many players are a combination of these motivators, and there are others, but for me, these are the Big Three.

I feel for Ben Simmons because I don’t like to see players get hurt, but I never saw the hype in Ben Simmons. I remember being in a debate on twitter with a huge sixers fan that thought Ben Simmons was the 2nd coming of Lebron, and that Simmons would have a better career than Donovan Mitchell. Safe to say I think I won that argument lol

What tragedy?! Dude has no heart, is a league-wide embarrassment and will earn more money than all of us combined. He'll be fine.

It is something he never worked on a jump shot from mid range. I remember Derrick Favors had a good free throw line jump shot to use even though he was mostly at the rim.

Australias #1 reported reason for work call out is back pain….little further down the list is anxiety. There’s your answer he’s not the guy

I blame Doc Blake went from very exciting with Del Negro as coach to whatever with Doc It's like Doc doesn't know how to coach/encourage skilled big men who can dribble and don't need to shoot

please do a video on the process (and what you think of maxey + embiid)

Is crazy how many chances a player with "unlimited potential" will get in the league even if they don't live up to it

there were a decent amount of people that made the argument that Simmons could do what Giannis could if he had a team built around him. I wasn't one of those people because Giannis atleast took some perimeter shoots and drove the basket/was willing to get fouled.... but I feel like that a team could work around Ben's deficiencies on offense just because of how physically dominant he could be on offense as well as how much of an impact defender he was....

Brother….if you cant see what Ben Simmons is I cant help you

I had one back injury in highschool not even like a big one and it still hurts to do regular things sometimes I played baseball through it and it was awful.

I know you usually talk about current players and events, but I’d love to hear you talk about Steve Nash!

We haven’t seen the last of Ben. He’s gonna go to a contender and be highly impactful again

I feel like Simmons was optimally suited for a sport that is like 1% different from basketball in the 21st century.

love the boj hat!

You know what's weird to me, is I feel like we've been talking about Ben Simmons and cracking Simmons jokes for like at least 10 years now, and the dude's only been in the league 6 years. (Ok, 2 of those years were DNPs, but still...)

When are we getting official Kofie merch?

bro said friday beer and cracked open a vodka seltzer

There's an easy way to defeat an offense that runs through Ben Simmons. You just foul the guy. Lol. 10 minutes later he's out of the game with a" back injury."

Maybe he’ll go to the Warriors and become Ben Wiggins.

his body is cooked too. so even if he started to play again it'll be obvious he's not rhe same guy

I hate the fact that people just completely dismiss his injuries just because they cant get past the fact he cant shoot. Bro was a unanimous all defense player. Goofy

High noon ain’t beer but I feel you

we love kofie 💕💯

I hate the Giannis/Ben Simmons comparison so much. Literally the only thing they have in common is they are bad outside shooters. Giannis is a 99th percentile athlete in a league of 99th percentile athlete. Ben Simmons is an average to slightly above average NBA athlete. Not to mention Giannis’s mentality is the complete opposite of Ben Simmons’s. If you built the Giannis offense around Ben Simmons you’d be a bottom 5 offense.

My thing with Ben Simmons is that once the contract is up and he’s not getting flamed all day everyday he’s gonna be a great what if pull

nice highlights he reached an elite level for sure.

did he call that High Noon a beer? lol

I still remember him dropping 40+ on Rudy Gobert and thought he would become a fearless finisher but he is hesitant to attack now (whether it be injuries or the mind games with free throws).

I can barely move right now because of a long-running back problem but I don't really know if Ben Simmons has a real back problem so I don't really feel sympathy. He mentally checked out of basketball a long time ago and I feel as if he would use anything as an excuse not to play basketball and so if he has a minor back problem I think in his mind it becomes a major back problem or he might not even think of it as a major back problem but as a reasonable excuse to not have to fail. A lot of people give up when things get rough and it seems as if Ben Simmons did that. I think we all lose when it comes to Ben Simmons.

Dude would have been a possible HOF if he came into the league 5 years earlier

ben will retire once his contract is up

Can we leave this man alone

I would be interested in a poll to see how many people really believe that he has a back injury so severe that he can't play basketball or if he's using it as an excuse not to play basketball. I feel bad for Brooklyn because they have to pay the guy another year after this one and you know they've gotten zero out of that deal. Brooklyn team Management deserves an award for bad decision after bad decision. They had a pretty good Scrappy team a couple seasons ago and decided to go for the ultimate power team and brought in one sketchy dude after another. Ben Simmons being the sketchiest of all.

Prime All NBA Ben Simmons will turn into folklore and we won’t know the truth until he chooses to speak on it. But one of the wildest downfalls ever, and maybe Ben Simmons will end up on the same lists as BRoy, Grant Hill, and those guys.

Both opinions of Ben Simmons are correct. It's a weird case where has a serious back injury, and it will never heal 100%, but he also has never wanted to be great enough to play through this type of injury. So it has ruined his career. I wouldn't want to either, but he acts like he's above all the criticism. His work ethic has always been a problem, and they knew that before the draft. As a Sixers fan, I supported him for long enough, and now I just don't care.

Theres no tragedy. He had fun. He was good for awhile. He made money. They ruined it for him. He stopped caring. It happens.

See, y'know who else was tall with great passing but couldn't shoot? Magic. It's possible, but you need a great scorer to make it make sense, and they have to post up for it to work

Once he leaves nba he's going to get trashed.

If only Ben punched that ball on Trae young’s head that one day. He may be a champ and he may still be good.

Health is key for every player. Dude was a star on some good teams. 100% not bust

Ben Simmons is the greatest player in the history of sports

It’s not even a Friday Beer it’s a a Friday Hard Seltzer I feel betrayed

Ayoo that Kirby

He's unique. I'm not sure he's a basketball player.

It was telling that his college team wasn't even good. Defensible number 1 pick at the time. I feel bad for anyone that gets hurt, but i don't feel bad for someone that never improves on their skills. That's a recipe for the curb in all professions. ✌️

Dude literally just needs tai chi and feldenkrais. Same reason his back sucks is the same reason he had a stiff shot. Too much ass clenching.

To be fair,I think what happened to Ben Simmons was a failure by a lot of people, Doc Rivers has a habit of doghousing players and destroyed the Sixers future after the process landed Simmons and embiid… They should’ve done everything to cultivate that future instead of making a choice when they didn’t have to. They lost Ben when Doc publicly didn’t support him and blamed him for their failures. Then the court of public opinion and sports journalism piled on. The guy was young and still young,…and had accomplished a lot in the league….rookie of the year defensive player of the year candidate. I’ve watched in all sports be written off then ball out. Lebron,Westbrook,Harden….comes to mind.

After this contract Ben Simmons signs with the Bucks to be Giannis' backup is what would be ideal for Ben Simmons. He'd have that team of shooters surrounding him and Bucks can rest Giannis 18 Minutes a night without losing a ton of athleticism. That would be a slam dunk for the Bucks and Ben Simmons!

Ben don’t have a post game bag that works in the NBA. He’s soft af.

Ben Simmons isn’t a bust but he is an underachiever.

Ben Simmnos is Amare Stoudemire

LOVE THE HAT

I like this video this is good

I feel like hes a bust as far as his brooklyn career, but his sixers career was really good no matter how it ended

Feel Ben Simmons will be like a bill Walton career (not as great) *Drafted 1st Best years first couple in the league *Plays a couple of seasons injured misses most of them seasons while being traded *Feel like he will come back for a couple of years and will retire after a injury Sometimes ur body gives up after u want to keep fighting

He might be my generations Nick Anderson

i hope he gets the surgery he needs and takes a year or two off then comes back in a different role. i want a good second act to his career. bill walton on the celtics swan song.

What tragedy? Bench Simmons just doing what he does best.

in todays NBA I think you should at least be able to shoot the 3 at an average he never tries to shoot even wide open

reasonable takes on simmons: the kofie storie

I think he is just mentally soft. All the talent in the world, and can't figure it out.

High noon 🤝🏾

SCT BRN VID, PLS

I skimmed the title and thought it said The Tragedy of Bill Simmons and now ngl I'm slightly disappointed

Talking about Ben Simmons' downfall? I am SO here

*Its not tragic, he made the CHOICE to go down this path.*

Dude is probably gonna end up with fewer games played than Yao Ming I’m sorry but that’s a bust, when you’re a first overall pick

Bro lifted a high noon and called it a beer 😂