Perhaps the biggest story of the NBA offseason so far has been none other than Ben Simmons who has been in a dispute with the Philadelphia 76ers. After a poor showing in the playoffs, Simmons and the Sixers have been heading towards a messy divorce and at this point, Simmons has requested a trade. The Sixers can’t seem to find any takers right now and it is causing the team stress as the regular season approaches.
During an episode of Shaq’s podcast, he spoke to Charles Barkley about the situation and as you can imagine, they are putting the blame on Simmons. As Shaq noted, the honus is on Simmons to get better and it doesn’t appear as though he wants to take accountability.
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“You’re not great. To be great, you have to work on your game. Don’t be putting pictures on your Instagram of your Ferrari or what actress you’re hanging around with,” Shaq said. “When you play for a town like Philadelphia, Boston, L.A., Miami — a hard-working town — they don’t give a s*** about none of that. They want you to come, work hard and play hard.”
Barkley echoed these sentiments as he claimed that Simmons’s response to the entire situation has been nothing short of disappointing.
“When you give somebody $200 million to dribble a stupid basketball and the only thing you ask him is be better as a player, and their first response is, ‘I don’t want to play here anymore,’ that disappoints me as a player. It disappoints me as a fan,” he said.
The Simmons situation is ongoing, so stay tuned to HNHH for all of the latest updates from the basketball world.