NBA commissioner Adam Silver has called Ben Simmons‘ feud with the Philadelphia 76ers “something you never like to see”.
Simmons’ future with the team is in serious doubt after being kicked out of practice and being suspended from the Sixers’ season-opener on Thursday.
READ MORE: Simmons causes social media storm in 76ers practice footage
Speaking ahead of the NBA’s opening night of the 2021-22 season, Silver said the Simmons saga was the perfect example of why contracts exist.
“This is nothing new frankly in the league unfortunately,” Silver told ESPN.
“There’s [been] storied players over many decades who’ve held out of contracts, didn’t go to the team that drafted them, held out of training camp, so I don’t really see it as being the modern-day issue people are painting it to be.
“On the other hand, it’s something you never like to see as a league.”
While he was disappointed with how the situation had played out with Simmons and Philadelphia, Silver stopped short of fully criticising the Australian.
“For Ben, what people are suggesting is this early in his contract it’s highly unusual to be holding out in the way he is, but again both sides have rights,” he said.
“As a result of holding out, there’s some combination of not being paid and being fined on top of that, and so it’s an unfortunate situation.
“There’s a reason why we have contracts, if everybody just complied according to handshakes, you wouldn’t need those documents, but when you have situations like this people of course turn to the contracts and expect players to honour it and players expect teams to honour contracts.
“It’s not just about management or ownership versus the player, players in this league as you know make moves based on where they think other players are going to be and so there’s a reliance issue for everyone involved and an expectation.
“It doesn’t mean that behind the scenes players and management don’t have discussions about potentially moving, but of course teams have the ability to trade players, but that’s a part of what they sign up for when they get their guaranteed contracts.”