Sources: 76ers hold $8.25M owed to Simmons
-
Tim Bontemps
-
Brian Windhorst
Close
ESPN Senior Writer- ESPN.com NBA writer since 2010
- Covered Cleveland Cavs for seven years
- Author of two books
The Philadelphia 76ers did not pay Ben Simmons the $8.25 million — 25% of his contract — that he was owed Friday and placed that money into an escrow account, sources told ESPN.
Moving forward, the 76ers will deduct any fines that Simmons accrues as the season progresses. If, or when, Simmons shows up, he will be given the money that is remaining in it, sources told ESPN.
The next line of demarcation in this saga will come Monday, when the 76ers play their first preseason game in Toronto against the Raptors. If Simmons doesn’t return to the team before that game, he will be fined roughly $227,000 — the same number Simmons will be fined for every game he misses going forward.
Sources told ESPN that in the meeting between Simmons and Philadelphia’s leadership last month, the team made Simmons aware that this was a possibility – and, at the time, Simmons responded by saying that he understood that, and that it would not change his stance either on reporting to Philadelphia or rescinding his trade request.
“We’re in it for the long haul,” a source close to Simmons told ESPN’s Ramona Shelburne this week.
When asked about the possibility of withholding this money from Simmons – who already received another $8.25 million on Aug. 2, as his contract states he will get two 25% chunks of his contract before the season begins — Philadelphia’s president of basketball operations, Daryl Morey, refused to say what would exactly happen but did leave this possibility open.
“I’d say we’re not going to talk about the specifics of fines or things like that, but I will say it’s pretty clearly spelled out in the CBA and in his contract what happens,” Morey said during his preseason press conference Monday.
As the 76ers returned to the court this week — and Simmons did not — the temperature on this situation has only risen.
Morey tried to spin it in a positive direction during his news conference Monday, saying that he compared to the tumultuous offseason between Aaron Rodgers and the Green Bay Packers — only for Rodgers to return and, the night before that news conference, lead Green Bay to a last-second win over the San Francisco 49ers.
“I think there’s a lot of hope,” Morey said. “I would say I watched last night a player lead his team to victory when a thousand pounds of digital ink were spilled on how much he would never play for that team again.
“Look, every situation is different, but we have a lot of optimism that we can make it work here.”
Superstar center Joel Embiid also initially expressed optimism about reuniting with Simmons, saying he was disappointed that the situation had reached the point it had between the two sides but that he still believes he could win with him as his co-star.
“Honestly, I would probably say I’m disappointed,” Embiid said. “Because I — look, obviously we haven’t won anything, but just going by what has been said through the media and you guys tweeting on your sources and stuff, I would look at it in the way that, look at what we’ve been able to do. … In the regular season we’ve been so good, and so dominant, that we know it’s working. … I’m disappointed that we’re in this situation. … I’m just disappointed he’s not here, because he knows it, too. He knows we can win together.”
In the wake of a subsequent report in The Athletic that Simmons had decided he couldn’t, actually, win alongside Embiid, the big man shot back during a lengthy answer when asked about it by reporters after practice Thursday afternoon.
“”The situation is disappointing, borderline kind of disrespectful to all the guys that are out here fighting for their lives,” Embiid told reporters at the team’s practice facility in Camden, New Jersey, going on to say that the idea the Sixers hadn’t built their team around Simmons was also incorrected.
“I feel like our teams have been built, whether it’s the shooting need or stretch 5 and all that stuff, I feel like [Simmons] always had it here. And we still have it,” Embiid said, before listing all the 3-point shooters on the roster. “… Our teams have always been built around his needs.”
“It was kind of surprising to see,” Embiid added, referring to the report. “We’ll say that, even going back to the reason we signed Al. We got rid of Jimmy, which I still think it was a mistake, just to make sure [Simmons] needed the ball in his hands. That’s the decision they made. Like I said, it is surprising.”
ESPN’s Bobby Marks contributed to this story
-
Pete Thamel, Senior College Sports Insider
UConn football coach Jim Mora has agreed to a new contract that includes two additional years that will take him through the 2028 season, the school announced Saturday.
The deal includes a raise to an average of $2.5 million annually over the course of the deal. He made $1.81 million in base salary in 2024, and the new deal will increase that base to $2.1 million in 2025.
Mora’s deal comes after he revived UConn football in his first three years at the school. He took over a program that went 1-11 in the year before his arrival and has led it to two bowl games in three years.
That includes an 8-4 regular season in 2024, which earned UConn a spot in the Wasabi Fenway Bowl against North Carolina on Saturday.
“Three years ago, I tasked Jim Mora with the challenge of leading our football team back to success and through his experience, energy and leadership he has done just that,” UConn athletic director David Benedict said in a statement. “He has taken our program to post season bowl games twice and just guided our team to one of the best seasons in UConn football history, building a momentum to keep this program moving forward. I look forward to his leadership of our football team in the years ahead.”
If Mora leads UConn to a win over North Carolina, it will mark the Huskies’ first nine-win season since 2007 and just the third nine-win season in school history. UConn went to the Myrtle Beach Bowl in Mora’s first year in 2022, the school’s first bowl game since Bob Diaco led the Huskies to the St. Petersburg Bowl in 2015.
Mora is a veteran coach who had two stints in the NFL with the Atlanta Falcons and Seattle Seahawks. He is in his ninth season as a college head coach, as he took the UCLA job in 2012 and had a successful stint there that included a pair of 10-win seasons. UCLA hasn’t won 10 games in a season since Mora left.
He mentioned at the Fenway Bowl news conference Friday that UConn went undefeated against Group of 5 teams this season, with its losses against Maryland, Duke, Wake Forest and Syracuse.
The 8-0 record against teams outside the power leagues, Mora noted, made UConn one of three Group of 5 teams to go undefeated against Group of 5 competition. He said that was a sign of UConn’s growth as a program.
“For this program, we want to start not just competing with but beating Power 4 teams,” Mora said, “and making the statement that we are becoming very relevant again on the football field.”
-
Adam Rittenberg, ESPN Senior Writer
Georgia quarterback Carson Beck, who underwent surgery earlier this week to repair the ulnar collateral ligament in his right, throwing elbow, declared for the 2025 NFL draft Saturday.
In a social media post, Beck thanked his Georgia teammates and coaches, calling his time with the program “an incredible journey” and writing that he will be around to support the Bulldogs during their College Football Playoff run, which begins Wednesday against No. 7 seed Notre Dame in a quarterfinal matchup at the Allstate Sugar Bowl in New Orleans.
Beck injured his elbow on the final play of the first half against Texas in the SEC championship game Dec. 7. Renowned orthopedic surgeon Dr. Neal ElAttrache performed Beck’s surgery Monday in Los Angeles. Beck is expected to make a full recovery, according to the school, and he will resume throwing in the spring.
The 6-foot-4, 220-pound quarterback is in his fifth year at Georgia, but he had another year of eligibility because of the COVID year in 2020 and appeared in only three games in 2021.
Beck, a native of Jacksonville, Florida, went 24-3 as Georgia’s starter the past two seasons. He entered the fall as one of the top NFL prospects at quarterback. ESPN’s Mel Kiper Jr. listed Beck and Colorado‘s Shedeur Sanders as the top quarterbacks for the 2025 draft entering the season. Kiper’s latest Big Board lists Beck as the No. 4 draft-eligible quarterback prospect, behind Sanders, Miami‘s Cam Ward and Alabama‘s Jalen Milroe.
Beck did not match his 2023 numbers this fall but still finished with 3,485 passing yards, 28 touchdowns and 12 interceptions, 11 of which he threw during a five-game midseason stretch. He had 7,426 passing yards and 52 touchdowns over the past two seasons for Georgia, and he was a two-time finalist for the Manning Award and was a second-team All-SEC selection in 2023.
Redshirt sophomore Gunner Stockton replaced Beck in the SEC title game, which Georgia won 22-19 in overtime, and will start against Notre Dame.
-
Sports2 years ago‘Storybook stuff’: Inside the night Bryce Harper sent the Phillies to the World Series
-
Sports9 months agoStory injured on diving stop, exits Red Sox game
-
Sports1 year agoGame 1 of WS least-watched in recorded history
-
Sports2 years agoMLB Rank 2023: Ranking baseball’s top 100 players
-
Sports3 years ago
Team Europe easily wins 4th straight Laver Cup
-
Environment2 years agoJapan and South Korea have a lot at stake in a free and open South China Sea
-
Environment2 years agoGame-changing Lectric XPedition launched as affordable electric cargo bike
-
Business2 years agoBank of England’s extraordinary response to government policy is almost unthinkable | Ed Conway