Philadelphia 76ers’ Ben Simmons ‘Won’t Play’ In The NBA Summer League

Bill Streicher-USA TODAY Sports

The Philadelphia 76ers haven’t had much luck over the years. Although the team has been able to bring in plenty of talented players through the NBA Draft, most of them have struggled to stay healthy despite showing tremendous talent when able to play. Ben Simmons is one of those players which has seen his career in Philadelphia get off to a rough start.

Before Simmons could make his NBA debut for the 76ers, the LSU product went down with a foot injury which would ultimately delay his rookie season one year. Simmons missed all of this past regular season and apparently won’t be participating in the upcoming NBA Summer League in Las Vegas, according to head coach Brett Brown via Scott Howard-Cooper of NBA.com:

Ben Simmons continues to progress, #76ers coach Brett Brown tells me at the combine, but “I believe that he won’t play in summer league.”

— Scott Howard-Cooper (@SHowardCooper) May 12, 2017

76ers star Joel Embiid played his first NBA regular season for Philadelphia this year and played better than expected. Embiid missed his first two seasons due to injury as well, and the combination of the center and Simmons could potentially form a dynamic duo along with Dario Saric who also played well in his first season.

With so many injury issues with the core players of the future, it isn’t all that surprising the team would want to hold out Simmons from Summer League play. The team is going with the cautious approach for their future face of the franchise as they will be preparing for his debut either in the NBA preseason in September or when the 2017-18 campaign gets underway in October.