Joel Embiid and Ben Simmons had the chance to build something special in Philadelphia. They were poised to put an end to years of struggles for Sixers fans, yet they were never able to achieve their true potential.
Simmons felt like the organization threw him under the bus after his epic meltdown in the playoffs vs. the Atlanta Hawks. He refused to be held accountable, but Doc Rivers’ comments on him were also uncalled for.
At the end of the day, Simmons bailed on the team and forced his way to the Brooklyn Nets. Embiid stood put and had the best season of his career, showing how different their characters went from day one. Even so, he claims he doesn’t understand what happened.
Joel Embiid Says He Doesn’t Understand What Went Wrong With Ben Simmons
“I just didn’t understand what was going on, honestly,” Embiid admitted on The Draymond Green Show. “I didn’t understand what happened and what led up to that whole situation. To this day, I don’t understand. Even when you look at it and I don’t have any problems with him and like I say, obviously we didn’t win the championship together, but in the regular season, we went dominant every single season.”
“50-win seasons, I always believed that we had a chance to win together,” he added. “Like I always believed that even to this day. I believe that we had a chance to win and what we were able to accomplish obviously, winning matters the most, but I feel like we had a chance and that’s what I don’t get. I don’t understand what was going on, honestly. What caused him to want to leave. I understand his explanation, but a lot of things don’t make sense.”
Embiid Says He Didn’t Call Out Simmons
Embiid also stated that, even though he did mention Simmons’ inexplicably passing on a wide-open dunk out of fear of being fouled and sent to the line; he also pointed out multiple events that led to the Sixers’ debacle:
“I don’t think it did, but this is why with, you know, you’re a member the media and all that stuff, but this is what you just mentioned, that they always gonna try to pick up little stuff just to make them look right or just to cause controversy and all that stuff,” Embiid said.
“If you look at the whole press conference, they asked me a question. What happened? What happened? Like, what caused this loss? And then I literally mentioned a bunch of events that happened,” he added.“I mentioned where it really started and I was being honest. I say what I want to say and I’m not gonna just hold myself just because I got to make people feel better and I feel like I didn’t hurt anybody’s feelings.”
At the end of the day, there’s nothing they can do to change the past or how things went down. Everybody involved in the situation could’ve and should’ve handled it better. But it was clear that Simmons had made up his mind as soon as Game 7 was over.
