{"id":89359,"date":"2021-06-22T20:29:34","date_gmt":"2021-06-22T20:29:34","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/?p=89359"},"modified":"2021-06-22T23:02:29","modified_gmt":"2021-06-22T23:02:29","slug":"bogut-not-surprised-by-simmons-tokyo-speculation","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/?p=89359","title":{"rendered":"Bogut 'not surprised' by Simmons Tokyo speculation"},"content":{"rendered":"

Boomers great and former No.1 NBA draft pick Andrew Bogut says he's disappointed but not surprised by speculation Ben Simmons <\/a>will miss the Tokyo Games.<\/p>\n

Simmons is tipped to skip the Olympics to focus on developing his game after a disappointing end to the NBA season with Philadelphia which has led to a barrage of criticism.<\/a><\/p>\n

"It's obviously disappointing," Bogut told Fox Sports News<\/em>.<\/p>\n

"He's an integral part in what the Boomers are trying to get to and would be, and he's the best Australian-born NBA player in the world.<\/p>\n

"Am I surprised? No, definitely not. I had an inkling.<\/p>\n

"I think there were perfect paths to pull out whether it was having a rough shooting series, or going all the way to a championship series and then there would have been rest.<\/p>\n

\"76ers<\/p>\n

"It's his decision.<\/p>\n

"I'm not criticising him for pulling out to want to better his game, but it's more of the tease and allure of is he in or is he not."<\/p>\n

The Boomers have never won a medal at the Olympics after some near misses and Simmons has always been seen as the missing piece that could push the Aussies into contention.<\/p>\n

But he's never actually played for Australia. Bogut said the team will continue on as it always has.<\/p>\n

"Ben's a supreme athlete, one of the best at open floor basketballers, physical, and he would have made a difference, and don't forget that he's a top five, top 10 defender in the NBA, so that's a big hole to fill, but it's also a hole we've never had to fill because he's never played.<\/p>\n

"It's bittersweet.<\/p>\n

"We don't really know what he can bring because he's never brought it for the national team."<\/p>\n

\"Simmons<\/p>\n

Bogut said it was disappointing to see Simmons' teammates point the finger at the star but that's the nature of professional sports. He said he knows how it feels to be hacked late in games and that Simmons' time in Philadelphia is most probably over.<\/p>\n

"I've been through similar journeys at times after the elbow and arm injuries. I got hacked to be put on the free-throw line and there were some series' where I shot well and others where I shot poorly and it is a lonely place and you want to make sure your teammates have your back," Bogut said.<\/p>\n

"That's professional sports, stars are always going to look to blame someone else and I think Joel's found that he's scapegoating Ben and everyone's piling on Ben.<\/p>\n

"And yeah, he had some instances there where he wasn't aggressive and it got in his head, but Joel also had eight turnovers in that game. He turned the ball over a lot in that series. <\/p>\n

"He had an MVP type year, but I don't like those leaks from anyone and this just shows me that the Joel Embiid-Ben Simmons experiment is over. I don't think it's going to go forward anymore. Those comments just show me that there's a disconnect now."<\/p>\n

For a daily dose of the best of the breaking news and exclusive content from Wide World of Sports, subscribe to our newsletter by<\/em><\/strong>\u00a0clicking here!<\/em><\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Boomers great and former No.1 NBA draft pick Andrew Bogut says he's disappointed but not surprised by speculation Ben Simmons will miss the Tokyo Games. […]<\/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\/89359"}],"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=89359"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/89359\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":89361,"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/89359\/revisions\/89361"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=89359"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=89359"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=89359"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}