Philadelphia 76ers Ben Simmons Out Indefinitely

Ben Simmons of the Philadelphia 76ers announced this afternoon via ESPN that he will be leaving the NBA bubble to undergo surgery on his left knee. Simmons suffered a partial dislocation to his left knee cap against the Washington Wizards earlier this week. The purpose of the surgery is to remove a loose body in the left knee as a result of the dislocation. The 76ers have not yet ruled Simmons out for the season but according to ESPN’s Adrian Wojnarowski, there is still a chance he could return later if the 76ers were to make a deep playoff run.

Simmons injured his knee in the late 3rd quarter in the game against the Wizards. The play seemed pretty routine as Simmons secured the rebound dribbled it down the left side of the floor before making an entry past to Al Horford on the left block. The play ended in an offensive foul called against Al Horford but Simmons started to head back on defense with a limp before eventually stopping completely. He flexed the left leg a few times before knowing he could no longer continue to play and checked out of the game.

This was a very tough injury for Simmons. He had battled with back problems during the regular season before the NBA’s hiatus and used the past few months to really get back to full health. He suffered from nerve impingement in his lower back and when he went out with this injury in late February the Sixer’s only concerns were to get him back healthy for playoffs. The time off before the NBA’s return in Orlando was actually beneficial for Simmons as it gave him time to heal and gave the Sixers time to refocus.

The Sixers were 11-25 on the road this year, an NBA worst. Simmons’ injury was just one of the few problems they faced back earlier this year. The Sixers needed to make changes somewhere if they were going to get anywhere in the playoffs this year and it just didn’t seem to be clicking for this very talented squad.

Heading into the NBA bubble the Sixers emerged as an Eastern Conference dark horse. They were finally healthy, found some shooters to help the lineup offensively, and they didn’t have to play any more road games (all games played at Disney). All these things sounded good on paper, much like they did for this Sixers team before the 2019-20 season where many chose this team to make it back to the Eastern Conference finals. The problem however has been Philidepia’s inability to execute, too similar to players, and inability to close out games down the stretch.

The Sixers started off 2-1 with Simmons starting in the bubble but were still showing flashes of a team that had addressed some of their problems from before the season’s hiatus. However now without Simmons for most likely the rest of the season this team will really need to find all-star level production from somewhere on their roster. They faired well in their first game without Simmons last night getting a win againt the Orlando Magic after finally pulling away in the fourth quarter for a 108-101 victory.

The notable performance in this game was Alec Burks who put up 22 points 4 reb and 2 assists. Burks is a very capable scorer and although in a different way than Ben Simmons it would be huge for this team if he could consistently produce around 20 points a game for this team just to take the offensive pressure off of Joel Embiid. Regardless the loss of Simmons will pose its greatest problems for this team come playoffs and with 4 games left until they start the Sixers will have to prepare for playoffs without their All-Star.