It seems the Philadelphia 76ers can’t catch a break. Especially when it comes to health and their recent lottery picks. Nerlens Noel, Joel Embiid and Jahill Okafor all missed considerable time in their rookie year.
We can now add Ben Simmons to the list after he suffered an injury during training camp.
The franchise has been the league’s laughing stock for the past few years. But it seemed their destiny was about to change when they chose Simmons first overall in the 2016 Draft.
Simmons has been touted as LeBron James’ second coming. He’s also one of the best prospects of the past decade. He was going to be the face of a franchise that needed a turnaround as soon as possible.
Instead, Simmons got injured, underwent surgery and might be out for the season. Talk about suffering a big blow before the start of the season, huh?
Essentially now the Sixers are back to square one. Embiid is finally healthy but he’s yet to play an NBA game in his career. Noel is good defensively but needs to improve his offensive game, and Okafor is the exact opposite. To make things even more complicated, last season taught us Okafor and Noel struggled to co-exist on the floor.
Sure, the Sixers have a few more veterans like Jerryd Bayless and Elton Brand. Dario Saric will add another body to the frontcourt mix too. There’s no doubt they’ll have a more competitive roster. But this is Simmons’ team and there’s no timetable for his return. Some say he could be back by January, others say March, and there’s a report saying his agent might force him to sit out the entire season.
The big question here is what Philly will do. They are not a playoff team yet, but the Simmons’ injury pushes them back at least a year. Will they go out and win? Perhaps they try to make a trade to acquire a point guard for the future? Or they could wait a few weeks and see what happens?
Of course, they can always tank and wait for next year. But at some point they’ll have to turn the corner. And not having Simmons certainly complicates their path to become a force in the Eastern Conference.