Part of the entire pre-draft process in the NBA is power management. Teams want to evaluate players as closely as possible, pull in as much information as they can muster in order to try and derive what the most accurate picture of their profile is. Players, on the other hand, only want to project the best, so that they’ll be taken as high as possible, which carries not only more prestige, but more money.
As you slide down the draft order, you have to compromise more. You sign up for workouts, hoping to impress and lift your stock. You interview more. You do what you can to try and make an impression. But if you’re at the top of the draft, you want to shut everything down and stay there.
That’s what Ben Simmons is doing.
There was speculation before the lottery that Simmons wanted to be drafted by the Lakers. But Simmons hasn’t worked out for the Sixers or the Lakers, and won’t be working out for anything. He’s shutting it down. If the Sixers want to take him at No. 1, they’ll have to sight unseen.
Unless something changes, the 76ers won’t work out out Ben Simmons during the NBA predraft process – at least not at Philadelphia College of Osteopathic Medicine.
They are expected to use the first overall pick on the former Louisiana State University power forward. However, Simmons doesn’t plan on working out for NBA teams leading up to the June 23 NBA draft.
“It’s not a red flag,” Sixers president of basketball operation Bryan Colangelo said. “Everybody deals with the draft process differently. Sometimes agents are involved. Sometimes families are involved in those decisions. Again, everything we get in respect to our intel that it relates to Ben, is he would very much like to be selected No. 1.”
Simmons likely to avoid working out for Sixers.
Simmons could work out for the Lakers, but that wouldn’t stop the Sixers from taking him. They’ve been expected to take him since winning the lottery last month, and the reports have only solidified that. There will be some degree of discrepancy between now and the draft; it’s not uncommon to hear talk before the draft about the team holding the top pick possibly considering taking the player everyone expects to go second instead. But the situation right now is that Philadelphia is going to take Simmons.
If he can’t improve his stock, he can only hurt it, why work out? Why showcase a broken jumper or struggle in interviews? The only reason to work out is to engage the idea of competitiveness vs. other top prospects, but you risk money, significant money, based off one bad day at a workout.
So Simmons won’t work out for teams, and has no reason to. Unless a cacophony of outlets report that the Sixers have changed their mind, expect Simmons to be drafted No. 1 next week and head to the red, white and blue.
