SPANISH HARLEM – The NBA season is only a couple of weeks away and that’s great for me because I love basketball. It also gives me the opportunity to talk about the New York Knicks more. Now, lets get into some stories that really caught my eye this week: Ben Simmons News and Is RJ Barrett Underrated?
Ben Simmons
The Philadelphia 76ers are in a no win situation. They have a player that is under contract for the next 4 years and that player also wants to be traded. Ben Simmons has stated that he will not be reporting to training camp which makes it difficult for everyone involved. I fully understand that he is out of favor in Philly and it would be best that he’s on a new team, sooner rather than later but if your the 76ers, you won’t just trade an asset for cents on the dollar. Not reporting, makes his trade value worse but there is no denying that Simmons is a big talent so its important to get big talent back.
There have been rumors involving CJ McCollum from Portland and John Wall of Houston but neither player is the talent you expect back for someone like Simmons. There would have to be more included to make those deals intriguing and yet the 76ers will still not feel like they got enough. He doesn’t want to play for a bad team and is hoping to go to a contender but most of the better teams have their rosters set. It will be interesting to see how it all develops.
RJ Barrett
Sports Illustrated released their Top 100 NBA players and while Julius Randle made the list, it was surprising to New York Knicks fans that RJ Barrett didn’t make the list. If someone asked me if Barrett was a Top 100 player, I would lean on no because the NBA has a ton of good players. After looking at their list and also the honorable mentions, an argument could be made that RJ definitely deserves to be on that list, though, let alone as an honorable mention.
Going into his 3rd season, Barrett has done nothing but get better and though there are things that he has to work on to become a more complete player, he is a better player than Kevin Love and Blake Griffin (honorable mentions). I fully expect that Barrett will be a better player next season and if he continues to work hard and add to his repertoire offensively, he can become a star. Hopefully, that is something he takes with him into games. Prove to the people, that he deserves to be on that list.
That’s it for now, come back tomorrow for Cam James, who has a collection of used rosin bags.
Until next time…
