Now with the Nets, Ben Simmons discussed his alienation from the Sixers, and his decision to pass up a dunk in an elimination game loss against the Hawks.
Simmons joked with the podcast hosts that it was a “hundred-point basket,” making a sarcastic case that the significance of his non-dunk was greatly inflated in terms of how much it figured into the Sixers’ loss.The 26-year-old guard-forward explained that after making his spin move against Atlanta’s Danilo Gallinari, he thought Hawks guard Trae Young was going to “come for the ball.
“Yeah, it was terrible,” Simmons agreed. “When I look at it now, I think, ‘Man, punch that [expletive].’ But it didn’t happen. And I was, ‘Okay, I can live with it.’ “I actually spoke to Doc Rivers before practice,” Simmons told Redick. “I was, like, ‘Doc, I’m not ready. Mentally, I’m not ready, please just understand that.’ I tried to let him know prior. Then he’s like, ‘Well, I’m gonna put you in anyway.’ And he told me to get in. I looked at him. It was like one minute into practice. Like, ‘You get in.’ And I’m like, ‘First of all, no one’s doing that, you’re doing this on purpose.