Takeaways from the Ben Simmons interview, Celtics in disarray, and more

Sep 23, 2022 - 6:06 PM

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This week, Ben Simmons joined former teammate JJ Redick and Tommy Alter on the Old Man & the Three podcast. It was the most we’ve heard from the former Sixer, now Net, since he last suited up for an NBA game in June of 2021. Here’s the full episode via YouTube:

Liberty Ballers’ Bryan Toporek and Jackson Frank have both transcribed and commented on portions of the conversation. Here, Sean Kennedy and David Early discuss their takeaways from the interview. What portions made them feel more sympathetic towards Ben? Where would they have liked JJ to dig in a little more? It certainly seemed like, as prior reporting had indicated, the Ben-Doc relationship had greatly deteriorated, as Ben mentioned when discussing his return to practice during the preseason. (H/T to Kyle Neubeck of PhillyVoice for the below transcription.)

“I was trying to do the right thing,” Simmons said. “Do right by whatever the f—k, the team, my teammates, whoever it is. I just was not in the right place to play, like I wasn’t, I just couldn’t do it. Getting kicked out of that practice that day, I actually spoke to Doc before practice and I was like, Doc I’m not ready, mentally I’m not ready. Please, just understand that, I tried to let him know prior. He was like, well I’m going to put you in any way. Told me to get in, I looked at him it was like one minute into practice, Ben get in, first of all no one’s doing that, you’re doing that on purpose. And that’s how I felt, it seems like everyone’s trying to f—k with me now. I’m getting fined for like not lifting weights, but physically I’m one of the strongest guys on the f—king team, so they’re out there fining me for little things. It was just a build-up of, obviously, I didn’t handle things the right way, but also the team didn’t either, and the people who had that power.”

In the second half of this week’s podcast, Sean and Dave cover the crumbling Celtics, with Danilo Gallinari tearing an ACL, Robert Williams out 4-to-6 weeks due to knee surgery (Editor’s Note: that timeline has now been updated to 8-to-12 weeks), and head coach Ime Udoka suspended for the season. They also ponder Harrison Grimm’s three spicy predictions, encompassing De’Anthony Melton’s Sixth Man of the Year candidacy, James Harden’s shot at the assist title, and Montrezl Harrell’s place in the Sixers’ historic backup big hierarchy.

Check out those conversations in this week’s Talking About Podcast episode, which you can listen to below:

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