Is it fair to criticize Ben Simmons?

[celticsclay]

A question to throw out there:

Are there certain professions where mental health issues simply disqualify you from employment?

If the answer is yes, is professional sports one of them? It is a profession where the entire idea is for it to be a high stakes contest of physical and emotional pressure, one which eliminates 99.999% of the willing participants, and where revenues come from intense public patronage.

Is lacking the mental capacity any different than being 5'8 and unathletic? In other words, perfectly understandable, but sorry, too bad? How many supremely talented basketball players just couldn't handle the pressure and never got past the lower levels only because of their mental well being?

Can you really sign a max NBA contract and then say you need some space to sort things out while being paid? Or is it a special privilege won by a tiny number of guys who repeatedly handled the challenge?

I think pretty every job in the United States it is illegal to disqualify someone for a job for a disability mental or otherwise.

I’ll add there are a few outliers. Like I don’t you can be a pilot if you are blind because there is a vision requirement (at least their used to be).

[Redz]

A question to throw out there:

Are there certain professions where mental health issues simply disqualify you from employment?

If the answer is yes, is professional sports one of them? It is a profession where the entire idea is for it to be a high stakes contest of physical and emotional pressure, one which eliminates 99.999% of the willing participants, and where revenues come from intense public patronage.

Is lacking the mental capacity any different than being 5'8 and unathletic? In other words, perfectly understandable, but sorry, too bad? How many supremely talented basketball players just couldn't handle the pressure and never got past the lower levels only because of their mental well being?

Can you really sign a max NBA contract and then say you need some space to sort things out while being paid? Or is it a special privilege won by a tiny number of guys who repeatedly handled the challenge?

I think pretty every job in the United States it is illegal to disqualify someone for a job for a disability mental or otherwise.

Right, but you’d still need to be able to perform the set tasks of any job in order to be competitively employed - with reasonable accommodations if necessary.  There in lies the run - what is a reasonable accommodation in his case?

[gouki88]

Simmons seems to, at every turn, want to have his cake and eat it too. Whether that's more Rich Paul than him, nobody can really say.

But it's a continuing theme with Simmons. Quit on LSU, never even bothered participating for Australia (who I'm sure he'd quit on), quit on Philadelphia and in this series it smells as if he quit on Brooklyn.

[Csfan1984]

Yes and No on criticism. Clearly Simmons is making a lot of bad decisions but he is also not well. We have to realize that some people have issues and really see things differently.

Yet when it effects teammates or teams and Simmons still wants to be paid that's a double standard. I am fine him sitting out but he should not be asking for a check. He wants that check he should play for it. Pick to sit and not be paid or go out and play for the money, it's that simple for me.

[hpantazo]

While I'm sure this isn't the only factor, is it a coincidence that the Sixers have now sent two #1 picks out the door in Simmons and Fultz for not being able to handle the pressure of playing in Phili?

[pokeKingCurtis]

Simmons seems to, at every turn, want to have his cake and eat it too. Whether that's more Rich Paul than him, nobody can really say.

But it's a continuing theme with Simmons. Quit on LSU, never even bothered participating for Australia (who I'm sure he'd quit on), quit on Philadelphia and in this series it smells as if he quit on Brooklyn.

At least he doesn't make a huge affair of it

Like Kyrie and Lebron wanting to be super selfish but also refusing to accept the villain role and needing to be seen as saints.

Maybe Simmons is like Darko Milicic. Darko hated basketball, quit and is now living his best life with his basketball money.

[ozgod]

Celtics fans, Philly fans, Nets fans...  they're all dumping on Ben Simmons.  He's fragile, he's weak, the Nets got played, etc., etc.

And, frankly, I'm right there with those fans:  mental toughness is a necessary skill for an athlete.  I wouldn't want him on our team, just like I didn't want Kyrie on the team after he showed himself to be a giant distraction despite his talent.

But, is there another side of this?  Do we sympathize with Simmons due to his mental health issues?  Is this at all comparable to Simone Biles, who was generally lauded for walking away from her team in the middle of the Olympics?

I think both points you brought up are fair. Ben is a public figure. Sure we only see one side of him. But because we only see one side of him that's the side we make a judgment on. And because he's a professional athlete, performing a role that ultimately entertains people, we tend to have a more transactional view of him, as we do with a lot of athletes. Just think of the stick Gordon Hayward got on this forum for always being injured, even if it wasn't his fault, and even if he didn't have anywhere near as controversial an off court image as Ben does. For better or worse, people look at athletes that play for our sports teams with a "what have you done for me lately" attitude, and Ben hasn't done much of anything lately.

I think that early on, most fans probably had sympathy for Ben. I certainly did. I've suffered from social anxiety myself, which I suspect he suffers from too. He's a very talented guy and guys like that are easy to sympathize with initially. Unfortunately with all his well documented issues (quitting on LSU, quitting on the Sixers, choking in the playoffs, the whole overpromise and underdeliver with his supposed availability for Brooklyn, his $20m grievance after quitting on his team and playing hardball to get out of a legally binding contract, not to mention not bothering to improve his game after 5 years and learn to shoot even 10 feet from the basket, just to name a few) people's sympathy wells have just about run out. We want to empathize with the guy, but he's making it really hard. Look at other players in the league with mental issues - Love and DeRozan, nobody gets stuck into them. We empathize because it's a human thing to do. But Ben makes it really hard, because he comes across as lazy, selfish, self-centered and a drama queen who likes the high life.

If he does have mental issues he's best off just going away, taking a year off to get himself right, go back to Australia or wherever his family is, spend time with them, see a therapist and stay under the radar. Tell everyone he's decided to take a year off to fix himself. Like Kawhi is doing. Don't get photographed with his monthly Instagram thots that he seems to love hanging out with. Then ONLY come back when he is 100% ready. I think people - not just fans, but his teammates - would respect that more than this drama. Kind of like what Biles did. The difference between Biles and Simmons in my opinion is that while both bailed on their teams, Biles had built up enough credibility and positive vibes over the years because of what she had achieved for her country and her teams that her bailing was viewed much more sympathetically than Ben, who looks like he bailed just for himself with a "I could care less" attitude.

That's the bigger issue - how teammates, and players around the league, look at him. Fans will be fans. But Ben has to play with his peers, and he's rapidly eroding whatever goodwill he has. I can't imagine KD or the Nets players are all that impressed with the ongoing distraction he provided when they were trying to come back from a 2-0, then 3-0 deficit. Then you think of how many bridges he burned leaving Philly. Here's what Barkley had to say.

“I don’t care about the fans. They’re important and significant. I want to make that clear. Fans are important and significant,” Barkley said Sunday on TNT. “But let me tell you something: When the players don’t respect you, that’s a big deal. When the players say, ‘We can’t count on this dude.’ Like, fans, they’re gonna come and go when things are good and bad and I love the fans. But Ben is getting to the point now where your teammates are like, ‘Yo, man, does this dude wanna play basketball?’

“It clearly happened in Philly and now it’s happening (in Brooklyn). Like, ‘Yo, man, we need something. We need something.’ Remember they were saying, like, he’s going to give us 20 minutes? Yo, man, try to give me 20 minutes. If you go out there and you can’t play, we’re like, ‘Hey, man, thanks for trying.'”

https://nesn.com/2022/04/charles-barkley-raises-concern-after-nets-rule-out-ben-simmons-for-game-4/

It's easy to make fun of him, because he brought it on himself. But he needs to figure things out. It's one thing to p--- fans off. But when you lose cred with current and future teammates you have a big problem.

Has Charles commented on Kyrie at all?  I wonder, due the same credibility concerns matter there?  Arguably, he’s quit on three franchises.

At risk of going off topic, Charles has commented on Irving many times, none of it good 

https://www.sportscasting.com/charles-barkley-proves-right-comments-about-kyrie-irving-brooklyn-nets/
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lk4RvQaUeRI - Charles Barkley calls Kyrie Irving “Half-Man, Half-A-Season”
https://basketnews.com/news-164073-charles-barkley-on-kyrie-irving-im-done-talking-about-him-i-just-hope-they-lose.html

If your question was whether Charles specifically drew some parallels between Cryrie's quitting on his teams and Ben's, that I don't know. He did criticize Cryrie for letting his team down by missing half the season due to vaccination issues.

[gouki88]

Simmons seems to, at every turn, want to have his cake and eat it too. Whether that's more Rich Paul than him, nobody can really say.

But it's a continuing theme with Simmons. Quit on LSU, never even bothered participating for Australia (who I'm sure he'd quit on), quit on Philadelphia and in this series it smells as if he quit on Brooklyn.

At least he doesn't make a huge affair of it

Like Kyrie and Lebron wanting to be super selfish but also refusing to accept the villain role and needing to be seen as saints.

Maybe Simmons is like Darko Milicic. Darko hated basketball, quit and is now living his best life with his basketball money.

I think over the last 12 months he's made a big affair of it. Or rather, I think Rich Paul has.

I'm much less of a fan of Rich Paul than Ben Simmons, and I've been a long-term bagger of Simmons!

[CelticSooner]

I'm sorry but this has the stink of Klutch written all over it. Either Simmons is as fake as a 3 dollar bill in public or he's mentally cooked. Regardless good luck Brooklyn with that situation because his value couldn't be any lower now.

[jpotter33]

Yeah, I'm skeptical of Simmons'/Klutch's claims. They seem too convenient and timely to be true, and this kind of skeezy behavior seems right in line with Ben's and Klutch's history.

Speaking of that, I think we should also not fault the Nets for the latest playoffs absence fiasco. The Nets and Nash in particular were very clear the entire time that they did not expect Ben back in this series and tried not to put  pressure on him. Rather, it seemed pretty clear that it was Klutch and Simmons' camp that kept leaking to Shams and Woj about Simmons preparing to play.

No idea what their endgame was, but I do have strong suspicions that a lot of this is shady, behind the scenes Klutch behavior trying to meet some other aim.

[ozgod]

Yeah, I'm skeptical of Simmons'/Klutch's claims. They seem too convenient and timely to be true, and this kind of skeezy behavior seems right in line with Ben's and Klutch's history.

Speaking of that, I think we should also not fault the Nets for the latest playoffs absence fiasco. The Nets and Nash in particular were very clear the entire time that they did not expect Ben back in this series and tried not to put  pressure on him. Rather, it seemed pretty clear that it was Klutch and Simmons' camp that kept leaking to Shams and Woj about Simmons preparing to play.

No idea what their endgame was, but I do have strong suspicions that a lot of this is shady, behind the scenes Klutch behavior trying to meet some other aim.

I wouldn’t be surprised if it had something to do with Ben’s grievance for the $20m Benjamins he wants from Philly.

[pokeKingCurtis]

Yeah, I'm skeptical of Simmons'/Klutch's claims. They seem too convenient and timely to be true, and this kind of skeezy behavior seems right in line with Ben's and Klutch's history.

Speaking of that, I think we should also not fault the Nets for the latest playoffs absence fiasco. The Nets and Nash in particular were very clear the entire time that they did not expect Ben back in this series and tried not to put  pressure on him. Rather, it seemed pretty clear that it was Klutch and Simmons' camp that kept leaking to Shams and Woj about Simmons preparing to play.

No idea what their endgame was, but I do have strong suspicions that a lot of this is shady, behind the scenes Klutch behavior trying to meet some other aim.

Ben comes off as weak, quitting on the 6ers like that

But Docs comments after a tough* playoff series were pretty sucky too

[Phantom255x]

If Ben Simmons really has these mental health problems, then why doesn't he just spend some time in the G-League to ramp up and step away from the team for a while.

Oh that's right, then he won't get his "hard-earned millions" as well as the 20M he's seeking from the grievance 

Also, I'm not a doctor and don't mean to blatantly sound insensitive, but this sort of puzzles me:

According to sources, Simmons told those in the room that a mental block exists for him, dating in part to last summer’s postseason, which is creating stress that could serve as a trigger point for his back issues. He added that he does want to play basketball and play for the Nets as he works on solutions in regard to his well-being.

What?? I understand the back has a lot of parts to it (nerves, bones, ligaments, discs, etc.) and back injuries can be hard to diagnose due to the complexities. But you can get back stress/pain from a mental block?? Sorry but I find that hard to believe. It sounds made up. "Oh my hand hurts as I'm thinking about this embarrassing thing that happened to me a year ago"

And even if this is true, then Ben Simmons SHOULD step away from the game of basketball to recover and take his time to figure out what's best for himself and his body. Because this isn't something that's going away in just a few days and could even put some (or even all) of next season in jeopardy.

But honestly, when you hear his herniated disc injury, and then they put this out there as he's working to get 20M from the Sixers grievance, it's hard not to see how it's not connected. So is the herniated disc issue just gone like that? And conveniently, we'd heard how he was "pain-free" and "walking like Jordan" in practices yet conveniently the day before Game 4 it's like, "oh no my back hurts a bit again".

I don't have sympathy for him. I don't understand how anyone can truly defend him either. From what we're hearing the Sixers and Nets have been trying their best but Simmons doesn't seem to care. He even withheld info from the Sixers for a long time about his situation (both the physical and mental health aspects of it). And if it's really as serious as Ben claims, why make it worse going through all this? Just say, "I need time, I'll be stepping away for a bit" and then people will stop hounding him about it for a while until he gets right.

It's also hard not to ignore the history of him quitting at LSU, quitting on the Sixers, basically quitting on the Australia National Team and he's on the brink of quitting on BKN it seems too

[jambr380]

Just imagine how differently everything would have worked out for everybody if HOU had just dealt Harden to PHI for Simmons/picks. Simmons would never have had the blow-up with Doc/PHI and would be playing stress-free in HOU; BKN would still have all of their impact players/picks; and PHI would have had two years of Harden, rather than just a half-season.

I still feel for Ben and he clearly has anxiety issues. And those anxiety issues may not have come to this apex had he been handled differently (given more encouragement rather than blame) or if PHI had just traded him in the offseason. I do think there is something to be said about 'mental toughness' being a prerequisite to being a pro-athlete, but I also think that guys can still succeed if they are surrounded by the right people and in the right environment.

This thing with BKN should have never happened. After his setback where an epidural shot was required to relieve his back pain, they should have completely shut him down. Dude was just in a zany outfit supporting his teammates and now people can't stop crapping on him. I honestly hope BKN trades him to like SAC or ORL this offseason so he can go do his thing under the radar.

[Roy H.]

If Ben Simmons really has these mental health problems, then why doesn't he just spend some time in the G-League to ramp up and step away from the team for a while.

Oh that's right, then he won't get his "hard-earned millions" as well as the 20M he's seeking from the grievance 

Also, I'm not a doctor and don't mean to blatantly sound insensitive, but this sort of puzzles me:

According to sources, Simmons told those in the room that a mental block exists for him, dating in part to last summer’s postseason, which is creating stress that could serve as a trigger point for his back issues. He added that he does want to play basketball and play for the Nets as he works on solutions in regard to his well-being.

What?? I understand the back has a lot of parts to it (nerves, bones, ligaments, discs, etc.) and back injuries can be hard to diagnose due to the complexities. But you can get back stress/pain from a mental block?? Sorry but I find that hard to believe. It sounds made up. "Oh my hand hurts as I'm thinking about this embarrassing thing that happened to me a year ago"

And even if this is true, then Ben Simmons SHOULD step away from the game of basketball to recover and take his time to figure out what's best for himself and his body. Because this isn't something that's going away in just a few days and could even put some (or even all) of next season in jeopardy.

But honestly, when you hear his herniated disc injury, and then they put this out there as he's working to get 20M from the Sixers grievance, it's hard not to see how it's not connected. So is the herniated disc issue just gone like that? And conveniently, we'd heard how he was "pain-free" and "walking like Jordan" in practices yet conveniently the day before Game 4 it's like, "oh no my back hurts a bit again".

I don't have sympathy for him. I don't understand how anyone can truly defend him either. From what we're hearing the Sixers and Nets have been trying their best but Simmons doesn't seem to care. He even withheld info from the Sixers for a long time about his situation (both the physical and mental health aspects of it). And if it's really as serious as Ben claims, why make it worse going through all this? Just say, "I need time, I'll be stepping away for a bit" and then people will stop hounding him about it for a while until he gets right.

It's also hard not to ignore the history of him quitting at LSU, quitting on the Sixers, basically quitting on the Australia National Team and he's on the brink of quitting on BKN it seems too

I have no clear idea what he's saying there, but it seems like he's saying that the back pain is real -- in that he feels it -- but that it may be to some extent psychosomatic? 

But you can get back stress/pain from a mental block?? Sorry but I find that hard to believe. It sounds made up.

The human brain is wild.  You don't get a herniated disc from mental problems, but pain?  Yes, that can be a thing.  Even beyond being purely psychosomatic, there could be a genuine physical component.  Stress / anxiety can easily lead to tightened muscles, which can aggravate a back injury. 

Think of all the physical maladies that stress can cause.  Headaches, stomach aches, ulcers, high blood pressure.  Add back pain to the list:

https://www.anxietycentre.com/anxiety-disorders/symptoms/back-pain/