Despite some early reports that Ben Simmons might have played himself out of being the No. 1 pick in this year’s NBA draft, it’s now almost universally expected that Simmons will go to the 76ers first overall on June 23rd.
Considering that, let’s listen in on Tracy McGrady’s comments when speaking to Rachel Nichols and Karl-Anthony Towns on ESPN’s The Jump Saturday afternoon.
1. Tmac with the Ben Simmons shade pic.twitter.com/sSZb452gIB
— D e e j a y (@BreesInDaCut) June 17, 2016
Hmm. There is no doubt that T-Mac is throwing shade on somebody when he says that a certain presumptive first-overall pick didn’t pay the proper respect to legends like himself, his cousin Vince Carter, and 11-time NBA champion Bill Russell, but he didn’t go as far as to name a name.
Simmons, meanwhile, confirmed on twitter that he did indeed met Russell.
https://twitter.com/BenSimmons25/status/743903070355075073
The only other person McGrady could even be talking about is Duke forward Brandon Ingram, who is expected to go No. 2 to the Lakers, as there hasn’t been any significant discussion about any other player going first overall. Still, it would certainly appear that McGrady was talking about Simmons.
Nichols chose not to make T-Mac confirm that’s who he was referring to, so we can only make an educated guess unless he decides to expand on his comments.
If indeed he was talking about Simmons though, it certainly isn’t the way the LSU forward would want to start his NBA career, and he’d be smart to reach out and squash any beef with those three NBA legends before the situation gets out of hand.
(h/t Complex)