Is it us?

I was not going to write about Ben Simmons. No way. No how. It just wasn’t worth wasting my time on a whiney, underachieving, pig-headed athlete. Then Ben decided to show up to play, kind of, and resume his place on the team, kind of. As confused as I am as to where this stands, I just couldn’t pass it up. 

For those of you who are not Philadelphia sports fans (like my kids), Ben Simmons is the “superstar” point guard for the Philadelphia Seventy-Sixers. At 6’10”, he is one of the most gifted athletes you would ever want to see. When he is on his game, he moves with a grace of a Persian cat. He is also a hardnosed defender in an era when defense is overlooked. 

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Ben, however, has his issues. He refuses to shoot from outside, which allows teams let him alone to guard others. He also has a tendency to get tentative and disappear in the midst of a game. This all came to a head in last year’s playoff loss to the Atlanta Hawks when Ben not only failed to assert himself when the Sixers needed him most, but he also became a target for the Hawks to foul because he couldn’t hit the broadside of a barn from the foul line. It was a disaster. 

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We all hoped that Ben would take this failure to heart and acknowledge that he needed to work on certain aspects of his game, and commit to coming back with a vengeance this year. Instead, he went into an immediate pout, stomped his foot, declared that he never wanted to play for the Sixers again and demanded a trade. It was if the Sixer management and fans had been sitting on the sidelines blowing as hard as they could to send his shots off-line. After all, the problem couldn’t be with him!! 

This is twice within the last year that Philadelphia has suffered through star athletes stinking up the joint and then acting as if it was someone else’s fault. Carson Wentz was historically bad as quarterback of the Eagles last year, to the point where he had to be benched, if only for his own safety. Yet, when it was all over, he refused to acknowledge how horrible he had played, pointed fingers at everyone else, and demanded to be traded. Sound familiar?  

There have been suggestions that the responsibility lies with the much-maligned Philadelphia fans. That we are too tough on those who play here, as if they just need love and tenderness to achieve (the little dears).  Well, if that’s what they need, they are right. They are in the wrong place. Philadelphia demands that its athletes take responsibility for their play and seek to improve. I would have it no other way.   

For those that do play hard, Philadelphia fans are some of the most supportive in the country. If players show grit and determination, we cheer them on. We can be incredibly forgiving and uplifting where we see an athlete admit their failures, and then bear down to succeed next time. That’s why many athletes who played in this town will tell you that there is no better place to play (ask Mike Schmidt).  

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This is really about the modern, pampered athlete. It is not enough to be paid gobs of money. Some players also seem to think that they deserve to be endlessly feted no matter what they do. All of them will tell you how much they love the fans, that is until the fans look to hold them accountable for their foibles. Then the fans are all cretins (which admittedly may are).   

This aspect of modern sport is only going to get worse. Kids are being scouted younger and younger (the University of Florida just gave a verbal scholarship offer to a 14-year-old quarterback). I wonder whether the new round of “stars” will develop the grit needed to withstand the pressures of fan attention. That grit comes from being challenged at every step of the way. If we skip that step there will be consequences.   

I do want to be careful. The pampered description above does not fit most professional sports figures. The Ben Simmons of the world, with their obvious unworldly talent, are the minority. Most athletes work incredibly hard to get where they are, and are so darn competitive, that they take setbacks to heart. We just see the finished product and so concentrate on the innate talent. We ignore what it takes for most to nurture that talent. 

I also understand the desire of anyone to be somewhere they are wanted and appreciated. We all want that. But you can’t cut corners to get there, especially if you’re in the public eye. You have to earn it, and keep earning it. That’s true generally, but maybe more so in Philly. Again, I would have it no other way. 

It will be interesting to see how the fans react if Ben reappears in a Sixers uniform. Initially there will be no doubt be a chorus of boos (and Philly fans can boo like no one else). In fact, if you’re sitting in the lower level for the first game, you might want to wear a hard hat. But if Ben takes that booing as a challenge and asserts himself the way we know he can, those boos will quickly change to cheers. 

That being said, I have seen nothing to suggest that Ben has it in him to accept that challenge. I think he will keep his head down, avoid the media, and continue to push to be traded out of Philly as fast as possible. If that’s the case, happy trails Ben.