Who does a Ben Simmons trade stand-off hurt?
The stakes of waiting are unclear.
Good morning. Let’s basketball.
A Philosopher Giving that Lecture on the Orrery in Which a Lamp Is Put in Place of the Sun, Joseph Wright of Derby, 1766
We are within a month of the NBA preseason and Ben Simmons is still not traded. The rumor mill keeps churning — the latest buzz teams in the sweepstakes are the Cavaliers and Timberwolves — but there does not seem to be imminent action in play.
This raises the question of who benefits and who is hurt if we actually get to training camp and Ben Simmons remains on the 76ers’ roster.
Does it hurt the Sixers to have a star player hold out? Theoretically, yes. Simmons is a really good player. If Simmons is on the roster, you’d like him to be on the floor. If you are set on trading him, you’d like to have whatever good players you’d receive back in a trade on the floor. In particular, it’d be nice to reserve as much of Joel Embiid’s energy for the playoffs as possible.
That said, so long as the Sixers win two out of every three games or so, which they can certainly do without Simmons, the trade price of the player won’t go down. In fact, outside forces may end up smiling on Philadelphia. Imagine the Blazers, Warriors, Jazz or Wizards get off to troubling starts. Maybe they get a little desperate. Maybe the Kings, Cavaliers or Timberwolves start in the hole and decide the status quo is untenable. Maybe the offers for Simmons get a little bigger, a little better.
A Simmons hold-out into early November or so won’t feel good for the Sixers, but unless the team comes out flat, it shouldn’t hurt too much either. There are always disappointing teams at the start of the season, and it only takes one to get desperate and toss in whatever Daryl Morey is holding out for.
Does it hurt Simmons if this drags on? The worst thing that could happen is that Philadelphia starts fining him for failing to report. The likelihood of the Sixers playing hardball in this way while playing hardball on the trade market seems low. The Sixers have all but agreed to trade Simmons, and been as public as any team can be about it without flat-out stating that he’ll be inactive until a trade is made. There’s no real benefit to fining him if you don’t think you can change his mind and change your own mind about keeping him. So Simmons is unlikely to lose money over this.
Simmons already has zero leverage about where he’ll land. He’s not going to no-show a team that acquires him; he has a long contract and too much to prove. So the idea that a protracted trade process will negatively impact Simmons’ future situation doesn’t really hold water.
One of the most formative and impactful trade processes of the modern era was the initial Melodrama in 2010 and 2011, where Carmelo Anthony worked to get himself traded to one of the New York teams. That whole ordeal affected so many careers and reputations. And you know who came out of it looking the best? Masai Ujiri, the patient GM trading the star. Morey already has a public brand, and without the N.Y.-focused element this will be very different. But patience doesn’t usually negatively impact teams trading stars. That’s worth remembering as we careen toward a training camp without resolution.
WNBA Playoff Chase Check
With between two and five games left for WNBA teams this regular season, let’s do a quick update on what remains at stake.
Connecticut should be the top seed
The Sun have won 10 straight and have a two-game lead in the loss column on Las Vegas with four games to go. Three of the four games are against fringe playoff teams. The Sun will be the top seed, which means two byes and home court in the semis.
There’s a real battle for No. 2
The No. 2 seed gets byes straight to the semifinals and home court in that round. The No. 3 and 4 seeds just get byes to the quarterfinals, which are single elimination, and no home court advantage beyond that. The No. 5 seed faces two single-elimination rounds, the second on the road. So there are real stakes here. (The difference between No. 3 and No. 4 isn’t all that big, though. It’s all about No. 2 and No. 5.)
Las Vegas has the edge by one game in the loss column over Minnesota and two games over Seattle and Phoenix. Aces and Lynx play tonight in a very important game. The Aces and Mercury play in the regular season finale on September 19. The Storm and Mercury face off on September 17. The Mercury also get the Sun this Saturday. Brutal finish for the Mercury here!
Minnesota has the easiest schedule remaining: after tonight’s Las Vegas game, the Lynx have three (three!) straight games against the Indiana Fever, then finish against the Mystics on the last day of the regular season.
Four teams are fighting for the last two slots
After those top five teams, you have the Sky, who are locked into the No. 6 seed for all intents and purposes. If they go 0-3 and the Wings go 3-0, Chicago could fall to No. 7. Not going to happen, though.
Dallas, New York, Washington and L.A. are fighting for two spots. These four teams have lost a combined 16 straight games. The Wings are at 17 losses with three games remaining. The other teams are at 18 losses. The Liberty have three games left (Wings, Sun, Mystics). The Mystics (Dream, Sky, Liberty, Lynx) and Sparks (Sun, Storm, Dream, Wings) have four each.
The Dream and Fever each have five games left. It’s theoretically possible they could get into this conversation. I guess. Did I mention that the 7-10 seeds have lost a combined 16 straight games?
Scores
Schedule
All times Eastern.
Mercury at Dream, 7, NBA TV
Lynx at Aces, 9, ESPN2 (big game!)
Links
Marc Stein is doing NBA Power Rankings, and per usual dropping some news nuggets in there.
Chris Webber talks. Really shocking to read that ESPN didn’t tell him Jalen Rose was going to interview him on camera when Webber made the Hall, and that they still haven’t spoken. I also really like what Webber says about the timeout game.
Ominous injury update from the Pacers on T.J. Warren, who played just the first four games of last season before suffering a foot fracture.
Prayers up for Cedric Ceballos, who is in the ICU fighting COVID-19.
Rohit Naimpally with an advanced stats breakdown of the Kings.
David Thorpe on why Ben Simmons would be such a great fit with the Warriors.
Chris Mannix on Paul Pierce as The Truth approaches his Hall of Fame induction this weekend. Jerry Colangelo telling Pierce he should make a public statement regarding the infamous IG Live with strippers that got him fired from ESPN to help assuage any concerns from anonymous Hall voters and Pierce refusing only to be named to the Hall days later is a perfect distillation of the Hall of Fame and Jerry Colangelo. Sheesh.
And finally: Kevin Durant confirmed Blue’s Clues kid.
Be excellent to each other.