The NBA preseason begins this week and the regular season tips off later this month on Oct. 19. But Ben Simmons is still nowhere to be seen.
The 76ers star wants out of Philadelphia and is continuing to stay away from the team as he tries to force a trade. As a result, the Sixers have decided to withhold paying a huge chunk of Simmons’ salary in the latest turn of this ongoing trade saga.
Meanwhile, the NBA continues to make progress on its goal to have all players vaccinated before the start of the season. However, there are still a few notable holdouts such as Kyrie Irving and Andrew Wiggins who still haven’t gotten their shot, which could prove to be quite costly for them.
Read on below as SBOTOP lists down the biggest pieces of news around the league as the start of the new season creeps ever closer.
Sixers withhold $8.25M in Simmons’ salary
Ben Simmons has still not shown up for training camp, so the Philadelphia 76ers have decided not to show him the money.
According to an ESPN report, the 76ers did not pay Ben Simmons the $8.25 million – a quarter of his $33 million salary for the 2020-21 season – that he was owed Friday and placed that money into an escrow account.
Simmons, who has not reported all offseason in an effort to get the Sixers to trade him away, will only receive his money once he returns to the team.
Aside from not receiving his $8.25 million, Simmons will also be fined around $227,000 if he fails to return before the Sixers’ first preseason game against the Toronto Raptors on Monday, as well as for each subsequent game he misses.
But despite the mounting financial cost of his holdout, recent NBA 2021 updates suggest that Simmons is prepared to hold firm with his stance in order to force his way out of Philadelphia.
Embiid slams ‘disrespectful’ Simmons situation
Meanwhile, Simmons’ fellow 76ers All-Star Joel Embiid made his feelings clear about the whole situation surrounding his disgruntled team-mate.
Embiid expressed his disappointment at a report that Simmons had decided he and Embiid could not win together.
“The situation is disappointing, borderline kind of disrespectful to all the guys that are out here fighting for their lives,” Embiid told reporters.
“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 … Our teams have always been built around his needs.”
With Embiid playing at an MVP-calibre level, the Sixers claimed the top seed in the East last season. However, they were upset in the second round by the Atlanta Hawks, with Simmons struggling mightily to score in the last few games.
NBA vaccination rate reaches 95 per cent
With just a few weeks left until the start of the season, the NBA’s vaccination rate – which includes players who have received at least one shot – is reportedly up to 95 per cent.
That rise comes on the heels of the league’s announcement that unvaccinated players would not be paid if they are unable to play in cities with strict Covid-19 vaccination mandates. New York and San Francisco have both passed laws that would bar unvaccinated players to play in those cities.
But while the league vaccination rate nears 100 per cent, there are still some notable players – like All-Star guards Kyrie Irving of the Brooklyn Nets and Bradley Beal of the Washington Wizards – who have yet to get their shots.
Golden State Warriors forward Andrew Wiggins is also still unvaccinated, which means he and Irving would be unable to play all of their teams’ home games this season – and lose millions of dollars in salary – if they don’t get their shots.
Nets owner on Kyrie Irving vaccination status
Nets owner Joe Tsai recently weighed in on Irving’s vaccination status. While he respects Irving’s personal choice, he reminds the star not to lose sight of the team’s ultimate goal: winning a championship.
“Kyrie talks about it as a sort of personal choice issue, which I respect,” Tsai said, via Brian Lewis of the New York Post.
“But we all need to not forget that our goal, what is our goal this year. What’s our purpose this year? It’s very very clear — win a championship. And a championship team needs to have everybody pulling the same direction. So I hope to see Kyrie play fully and win a championship together with everybody else with all his teammates.”
The NBA 2021 betting odds have the Nets as big favourites to win the title. And if MVP candidate Kevin Durant, James Harden, and Irving are all healthy and together on the floor, they will certainly be tough to stop.
As they showed in the playoffs last year, the team will still be quite a formidable force even if Irving is unavailable. But Tsai and the rest of the Nets would obviously prefer to have their star point guard vaccinated and available to play as much as possible.
Bradley Beal in no rush to sign extension
Bradley Beal’s vaccination status is not the only important issue surrounding him at the moment. With just two years left on his current contract, the Wizards star is now eligible to sign a four-year extension worth over $181 million.
But much like his stance regarding vaccination, Beal appears to be in no rush to sign an extension and commit his long-term future to Washington. Instead, he would first like to see whether he can win with his current crop of teammates.
“My biggest thing is getting us off going to a good start,” Beal said of an extension. “We worry about the contract money and all that later. I’ll let them deal with it when the time comes, for sure. I got all year to sign, too. So I’m not in a rush… I want to win. I want to win the right way and do it here, and I think we have enough. So it’s just we have to get it done.”
Beal, 28, has played his entire career with the Wizards. He has emerged as one of the elite scorers in the league with back-to-back seasons of over 30 points per game.
Beal has also been the subject of much trade speculation in the last few seasons, and those rumours will grow louder if the Wizards get off to a slow start and Beal remains unwilling to sign an extension.
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