You won’t find many people that follow the NBA that want to rush to stick up for Ben Simmons. The Brooklyn Nets guard missed the entire NBA season and despite initially teasing a potential return in Game 4 of the team’s first round series against the Celtics, he is now saying he has a bad back.
Doug Gottlieb isn’t ready to absolve Simmons of all criticism, but he thinks some of it is unfair. He points specifically to TNT’s Reggie Miller, who tweeted on Monday that Simmons lacks “competitive fire.”
Gottlieb pointed out that Miller wasn’t nearly as hard on Zion Williamson. He was the analyst for a game that featured the New Orleans Pelicans and Phoenix Suns. Williamson was listed as out, but still managed to pull off a 360 dunk during warm ups.
“The competitive fire thing, where is that about Zion?” Doug Gottlieb said on his FOX Sports Radio show Monday.
He said it was absolutely fair to say that Ben Simmons has no equity with fans. He isn’t even well-liked in his home country of Australia. Still, he is taking criticism other players missing playoff games aren’t.
“We all like Zion Williamson. Everybody wants to see Zion Williamson play. Don’t we? And maybe it’s because Ben Simmons didn’t shoot last year in the playoffs. Maybe it was because of what he was wearing I guess. I don’t know. But have you noticed that I haven’t seen these tweets about Zion Williamson.”
Doug Gottlieb also said that it feels like a waste of time and effort to be mad at Simmons for missing Game 4 of a playoff series when he hasn’t played all season. He said that there is no way Reggie Miller believes that Ben Simmons is the difference between the Nets getting swept and staying alive.
While it isn’t fair to be critical of a player not willing to play through injury, Gottlieb says Simmons does deserve to be called out for how he handled the offseason. He didn’t work on his shot. He didn’t play for Australia at the Olympics. It is, in Gottlieb’s eyes, part of a trend with Simmons.
“Ben Simmons is as talented a player as I have ever seen in the college game. The game was easy to him, but he just didn’t work! I watched him shoot, and he didn’t work. That’s a fair critique. I do not believe it’s a fair critique to go, ‘Hey, guy’s not playing because of competitive fire. Guy’s not playing essentially because he’s faking it. He’s pouting.’”
