PHILADELPHIA — There are plenty of reasons to think that the 76ers will have a pretty easy time beating the Brooklyn Nets in the first round of the NBA playoffs. The Sixers have Joel Embiid, who led the league in scoring and is likely to be voted its most valuable player. They have James Harden, who led the league in assists and is healthier and playing better ahead of a postseason tournament than he has in years. They have the better roster, home-court advantage, and the motivation that comes with being a team that has been tagged with high expectations and that often has fallen short of those expectations.
But there is one reason to think that the Nets can give them a tough go of it in this series.
The Nets won’t have Ben Simmons.
Remember Ben Simmons? Like a symptom of post-traumatic stress, it would be understandable if you didn’t. A quick reminder: Big guy, 6-foot-10 … first pick in the 2016 draft … supposed to be the next LeBron … fast … great vision … great defender … got a max contract … terrified of shooting and dunking … sullen … wouldn’t work to improve his obvious weakness … Game 7 against the Atlanta Hawks … Doc Rivers’ postgame comments … hurt feelings … wouldn’t play for the Sixers anymore … demanded to go to another team … traded to the Nets for Harden ... Yes, now you remember. Of course you remember. Wait, why are you screaming and gnashing your teeth? Stop screaming and gnashing your teeth. Please.
Simmons suited up in just 42 games this season and last played for the Nets — in an actual NBA game, I mean, not in one of those social-media videos intended to hoodwink everyone into believing he really can shoot a jump shot this time! — on Feb. 15, nearly two months ago. Ostensibly, he has a back injury. In reality, he very well might have a back injury. Or he might be undergoing genuine mental health issues. Or he might be so mentally and emotionally fragile that, if given his preference at the moment, he’d rather not play. And it might just be that he was so sheltered and arrogant for so long and treated his coaches and teammates and people around the Sixers so badly that it’s difficult to find anyone who thinks of him as anything other than a sheltered and arrogant person whose misery is his comeuppance for treating people badly.
So yeah, the Nets might be better off without a guy like that. Plus, they might be better off from a pure basketball standpoint, too. Sure, when they began the season, they had Kevin Durant and Kyrie Irving and Simmons and the hope that those three could carry them on a deep playoff march. But that hope faded fast, and the Nets traded Durant to the Phoenix Suns and Irving to the Dallas Mavericks, and now they have a more balanced approach on offense, especially now that Simmons isn’t in there to gum up the works.
“Anybody on their team can go for 20 with the way they move the ball,” the Sixers’ P.J. Tucker said Wednesday after the team practiced at its headquarters in Camden, N.J. “They share the ball. They get a lot of threes up. And they don’t care. That’s hard to guard when everybody’s aggressive and ready to score.”
I asked Rivers if it was more challenging to prepare for a Nets team without Simmons, since the Sixers would actually have to guard all five players on the floor.
“I’m not touching that,” Rivers said. “No thank you. I’ll pass. He’s not part of the playoffs, so we shouldn’t talk about him.”
What a weird development. There was a time, not that long ago, when people around here couldn’t stop talking about Ben Simmons. Now the Sixers are about to face Simmons’ team in the playoffs, and no one is talking about him or really wants to talk about him.
It’s possible that Simmons will join his teammates for each of these games and subject himself to boos and ridicule inside the Wells Fargo Center, especially if he dresses like he has when he has sat on the Nets’ bench before, in loud purples and oranges and tinted sunglasses, like a long-lost harmonist from Color Me Badd, totally not calling attention to himself. But the last time he did that was a year ago, and I’d be surprised if he showed up at all now. I suspect everyone would be. It’s as if he were invisible, which everyone seems to prefer. Including his team. Including Ben Simmons himself.
