Ben Simmons discussed many topics at length, notably his relationship with his former teammate Joel Embiid, in a sit-down interview with Nick Friedell of ESPN.com.
I don't talk to Jo. We never really spoke," Simmons told ESPN.com.
"I don't think there was really a relationship there. Like in terms of a friendship? You can try as hard as you want to try to be close to somebody, be their friend, whatever it is, but everyone is different as people, so for me, it's never personal. I don't have any anger or hate towards him. He is who he is and I am who I am. And we've got our personal lives. And work is basketball, so in that moment, my goal is to win and I got to win with Jo. He's a great player, we just didn't get it done.
Simmons opened up about his departure from Philadelphia, his mental health issues, and the way he was treated by Embiid, Doc Rivers, and the Sixers' organization recently on JJ Redick's podcast.
"I'm already dealing with a lot mentally in life, as a lot of people do [before the Hawks series in June of 2021]," Simmons said on an episode of Redick's podcast The Old Man and the Three. "It's like from the people that you're supposed to have the support from, or that comfort from, and I wasn't getting that either [after the Hawks series]. So it was a toll on me and then mentally, it killed me. I was like, f***, no energy for anything. I was in a dark place. And it took me a long time—the first thing for me was really identify, I got to get right. And it's not a physical thing, it's mentally. That was tough for me, knowing I didn't really have that support either from teammates or whatever it was at that time."
After Simmons passed up an open dunk in Game 7 of the 2021 Eastern Conference finals against the Hawks, Embiid blamed Simmons publicly.
“I’ll be honest," Embiid said back in June of 2021 after the loss, “I thought the turning point was when we … I don’t know how to say it, but I thought the turning point was just when we had an open shot and we made one free throw and we missed the other, and then they came down and scored."
In the new ESPN.com interview, Simmons was asked if he's looking forward to facing the Sixers in Philadelphia on November 22nd.
"F---, I can't wait to go there, yeah. But for me, everything's an experience and a learning situation. So for me I'm able to learn something that I've never been through before. I've never been traded and played against a team that I got traded from. Kev has, Ky has, a lot of guys have, but I've never been in that situation so -- you have to go through it. Ky went back to Boston, and he didn't play well, but it's a lot. We're people, too. We want to go out there and prove everyone wrong."
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