Ben Simmons, by nature of being a prominent basketball player ever since he’s been in high school, is one of the players who has a pretty good understanding of how the sport’s punditry ecosystem works. As a result, he’s learned that the best possible way to deal with general take artistry is to ignore that altogether, to the point that he doesn’t allow people in his home to turn on the Worldwide Leader in Sports™.
In a new interview with Tyler R. Tynes over at GQ, Simmons was asked about the tension that exists between basketball players and those who opine on the game, whether they be fans on the internet or talking heads. After saying that he tries to ignore people and he doesn’t go on Twitter anymore, Simmons went on to say that “if someone puts ESPN in my house it’s going straight off.”
Simmons then opined on his issue with sports television altogether, which is a pretty common one among people who have gotten more and more disenchanted by it recently.
There’s no SportsCenter, unless it’s a game going on or something like that. There’s no Stephen A., there’s none of that.
[An Australian man in the background begins yelling: “That’s confirmed! This is confirmation!”]
Yeah, turn that off. Turn that sh*t off [laughs]. That’s just how I am. It’s gone from people watching and enjoying sports and a couple of people talking, to you’re in Vegas and you see the tickers on the bottom of the screen explaining all these comments and what this guy or that guy did. Less is more, sometimes.
As someone who would also strongly prefer less takes in their sports television consumption, Simmons is coming from an extremely understandable place here, especially considering how much of the early portion of his NBA career was defined by stuff like “can he and Joel Embiid co-exist?” or “can he ever reach his potential without a jumper?” and stuff like that. He also “genuinely” believes Philly can win a championship this year, which would certainly make listening to punditry a bit more palatable for him.
