{"id":8055,"date":"2020-12-10T10:05:20","date_gmt":"2020-12-10T11:05:20","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/?p=8055"},"modified":"2020-12-10T11:59:11","modified_gmt":"2020-12-10T11:59:11","slug":"why-blockbuster-simmons-trade-makes-perfect-sense","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/?p=8055","title":{"rendered":"Why blockbuster Simmons trade makes perfect sense"},"content":{"rendered":"

Former NBA star Jalen Rose<\/a> and ESPN stalwart Stephen A Smith<\/a> are already on board.<\/p>\n

Now senior NBA insider Zach Lowe has added more fuel to the Ben Simmons for James Harden trade fire.<\/p>\n

On the latest edition of The Lowe Post<\/em> podcast<\/a>, ESPN's Lowe said he would be staggered if Simmons' Philadelphia 76ers and Harden's Houston Rockets didn't at the very least explore the possibility of swapping their franchise stars.<\/p>\n

Former MVP Harden, disgruntled with the Rockets and not reporting to training camp, reportedly has the 76ers on a list of teams he would be happy to play for.<\/a><\/p>\n

\"James<\/p>\n

"I don't care what anyone says, those two teams are going to talk at some point," Lowe said in his conversation with fellow ESPN journalist Tim McMahon.<\/p>\n

"That offer is going to come up, it has to, it's too obvious.<\/p>\n

"It is interesting because James Harden is two years away from being 33 and asking for a max contract.<\/p>\n

"And Ben Simmons is under contract for the next five seasons.<\/p>\n

"He's 24 and he just made an All-NBA team.<\/p>\n

"James Harden is better, but Ben Simmons is seven years younger, under team control at a cheaper price for much longer.<\/p>\n

"And they just made all these deals to surround their teams with shooting."<\/p>\n

\"James<\/p>\n

Indeed, if Harden was willing to play for Philadelphia, a trade would be a relatively clean on-court fit for both teams.<\/p>\n

Harden would form a devastating inside-outside tandem with Joel Embiid while Simmons would be handed the keys for the rebuilding Rockets, with John Wall surely taking a back seat.<\/p>\n

Lowe said both teams could argue they were getting the better end of a one-for-one deal.<\/p>\n

"I could see the Sixers reasonably saying, 'hey, before I upend everything,' and the Rockets may even demand more than Ben Simmons," Lowe said.<\/p>\n

"I could see the Sixers saying 'no, he's seven years younger and his contract is better. You get nothing more than Ben Simmons and you'll like it and that's it.'<\/p>\n

\"<\/p>\n

"And maybe they never talk, maybe it never happens.<\/p>\n

"I find that very hard to believe but they (76ers) did just upgrade their shooting to see if it works and I can see them saying 'before we upend everything, let's play 50 games, maybe it works.'<\/p>\n

"Awesome, maybe Joel Embiid has his best season ever, maybe Simmons makes another step, maybe this whole thing about 'does he shoot threes, does he not', it's clear that Doc's not going to make that an issue.<\/p>\n

"Maybe that frees him to play inspired with the rest of his game.<\/p>\n

"Maybe with more shooting we're amazing.<\/p>\n

"I don't know what the end game is but even saying all that, I'd be surprised that at some point the Sixers don't have talks about it."<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Former NBA star Jalen Rose and ESPN stalwart Stephen A Smith are already on board. Now senior NBA insider Zach Lowe has added more fuel […]<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8055"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=8055"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8055\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":8057,"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8055\/revisions\/8057"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=8055"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=8055"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=8055"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}