“The Process is dead.”
That’s the prevailing sentiment following the Philadelphia 76ers’ flame out in the second round of the NBA Playoffs to the Atlanta Hawks. The number one seed in the Eastern Conference fell flat on their faces in a 103-96 Game 7 loss. Some apologists blame Joel Embiid’s injury, but the All-NBA player gave it his all on a banged-up knee.
The same cannot be said for Ben Simmons, who was an offensive liability throughout the series. NBA legends Charles Barkley and Magic Johnson appeared on ESPN Radio to try and explain what went wrong with the first pick in the 2016 NBA Draft.
“Number one, I feel sad,” Barkley said on Greeny. “You don’t wanna see anybody just meltdown publicly like that. When you play sports, you are naked for the world, and you just felt bad for the kid [Simmons]. He’s a great kid, but clearly, he’s got some mental issues going on when it comes to free throws, shooting the ball things like that.”
Ben Simmons didn’t offer much of anything as a shooter the Sixers. He finished the 2021 Playoffs with the lowest free throw percentage in NBA Playoff history (34.2%) and did not attempt a shot in the fourth quarter of Games 4 through 7.
Barkley went on to say that the Sixers brain trust needs to straight-up ask Ben Simmons if he’s going to work on his game because this version of him isn’t very appealing for them or in a trade. Johnson has already written off the idea of Simmons staying in Philly, saying on KJZ that he “can’t recover from this” in the Sixers locker room.
“It’s time for a change,” Johnson said on the show. “The locker room won’t recover from it. When they went to the Hack-A-Shaq, basically Hack-A-Simmons, that just killed them.”
Johnson continued and drove home the point that the Sixers lost the series after they collapsed up 26 points in Game 5. Whether it was Game 5 or Game 7 as the tipping point, the Sixers are exiting another season with more questions than answers surrounding The Process.
