Georges Niang Calls Out Ben Simmons For Actions Before Trade To Nets

The Ben Simmons saga surrounding the former No. 1 overall pick and the Philadelphia 76ers is well documented. The Sixers and Simmons had a messy divorce over the beginning of the 2021-22 season before he was finally sent to the Brooklyn Nets for James Harden at the deadline.

Simmons essentially held out from the Sixers in order to force a trade and he didn’t play a single game for Philadelphia before being moved. A back issue then bothered him and he didn’t play for the Nets after the trade.

Georges Niang hopped on 97.5 The Fanatic and he gave his perspective on the Simmons saga in his first season in Philadelphia:

Ben Simmons kind of handicapped us at the beginning…When you look at your building rosters, like I’m talking from like a general manager standpoint, I don’t know how much he makes, but it’s a max contract. So you immediately take that off the books, I’m not playing. Now you have to figure it out where other role players have to step up and replace the passing, dribbling, rebounding, defense. So you know, to have to do that and you know, I think people don’t understand, the team aspect is very important. I think Doc Rivers does a good job of like buying into the team, and so when you don’t know who you’re going to have night in and night out, is he coming back? Is he this? I feel like the updates that we were getting about him was like when I turned on my TV, I was listening to Stephen A. Smith, and he said he’s gonna be at practice tomorrow. And I was like, well, there he is and so last year was difficult because you didn’t know who you have. Then, the trade deadline is coming up and everybody’s walking in like, well, who’s being attached to him? That’s going? So it was just like, you had that uneasy feeling.

Simmons is now out of Brooklyn’s rotation as he has not been able to be the player that they were hoping to get. He has looked like a shell of his former self and with the Nets trading away Kevin Durant and Kyrie Irving and focusing on a new direction, there is not much reason to play Simmons at this point.