It is widely thought that Ben Simmons’ trade request was a result of comments made by the 76ers head coach Doc Rivers that questioned his ability to lead a team to a title.
However, according to Rivers, that was not the case. Instead, he says, it was things that added up even from the time before he arrived in Philadelphia as a head coach.
In his opinion, those things still weren’t enough for Simmons to want to leave. But since it happened, Rivers wishes him nothing but success.
Via NetsDaily:
“That one comment thing had nothing to do with why Ben wanted to leave,” Rivers said. “Alright? Let me just say that. It was a lot of things as Ben told me — and publicly now — that happened long before I got there. What frustrated me was that I still think it shouldn’t have been enough to want to leave. I just didn’t and I told Ben that. I kept telling him that. This is not why you want to leave a team. You work these things out. They didn’t get worked out and so yeah, we’ve had one talk. Not a long, long talk, but we did have one good talk.”
Rivers said he hopes Simmons will do well in Brooklyn. “I want the kid to do well. I don’t have any, like, bad feelings about him. He didn’t do anything wrong to me. I just want most guys do, I really do. Now I want to kick all their butts when they’re not on my team. That’s the competitive side of me, but as a human being, I think we all should want Ben and all these guys to do well.”
