His expectations are low for Thursday night.
“Hopefully I don’t fall on stage,” Ben Simmons said. “That’s the most important thing.”
He downplayed an assessment of how far the 76ers are from the playoffs.
“I have no idea,” Simmons said. “I haven’t even played an NBA game.”
That’s the end of it, though. That’s where under-the-radar ends for Ben Simmons. That’s the last time he can try to convince anyone his words about the NBA don’t matter. He is joining the league as a very unique player, as an international marketing magnet. He is likely the new face of the 76ers and the No. 1 pick in the 2016 NBA Draft (Thursday, 7 p.m EST, ESPN).
Oh, and successfully navigating the stage of Brooklyn’s Barclays Center on Thursday — if it happens — will be the last time for a while that Ben Simmons and low expectations are in the same sentence. There is that most of all.
Simmons was speaking Wednesday afternoon in the ballroom of a Manhattan hotel as a draft prospect, meeting the media in advance of the selections a few miles away, but his statements will be loud and meaningful after Thursday night. The instant commissioner Adam Silver announces his name as the first choice, barring a shocking change of plans by Philadelphia, Simmons steps into a spotlight that will make his days as an ultra-hyped amateur seem muted.
That would have been the case anyway, an unwritten part of the contract as the No. 1 pick in any year, but is especially true for the 2016 edition, a very different player in a different situation.
These are the 76ers in need of reasons to believe in the future amid several seasons of losing, injuries, losing, big men who don’t mesh on the court, losing, a lottery pick from 2014 still trying to work his way over from Europe, and losing. They won 10 games last season. They won a combined 47 games in the last three seasons.
And this is Simmons, the subject of great NBA interest for many years, a teen sensation in Australia before attending high school in Florida and going to LSU as a mega-recruit standing in a publicity storm. He was a 6-10 freshman who handled the ball on the run, had a high basketball IQ at 19 years old and delivered crisp passes in a pairing of body and style that turned front offices into heretics.
“He’s LeBron James physically with Magic Johnson’s passing,” one executive told NBA.com. “It’s ridiculous…. The way he plays, the game slows down for him.”
(Said another exec, understanding the burden being dropped on Simmons: “That’s not fair.”)
Simmons has never been conventional, and now he’s not any typical first choice. He can be as unique a player as exists in the NBA — and he can do it in a large market for a roster that needs an infusion of dynamic.
Everything he does and says will matter. He didn’t want to be presumptuous Wednesday, in the absence of a statement from the 76ers that he would be the choice, but yes. Large megaphone.
“It will be very tough,” he said when asked about the spotlight already creeping over him. “But I’m looking forward to it. Nothing’s going to be easy in the NBA, especially as a rookie, but I’m ready to take on the challenge.”
Does he have any sense of what those expectations will be like?
“Not really,” Simmons replied. “But all I can do is work hard. That’s about it.”
For now, Philly has the first choice, Nerlens Noel, Jahlil Okafor, Joel Embiid on the latest comeback trail, plus picks 24 and 26 in this draft, but that could be changing by the minute. New president of basketball operations Bryan Colangelo has held a constant stream of trade talks in search of a solution to the Noel-Okafor pairing that didn’t work last season, with the possibility a deal could be culminated in time to give the 76ers another lottery pick Thursday. Dario Saric, a 2014 selection, may or may not get out of his Turkish contract this summer. And Emiid, of course, has become an eternal uncertainty because of health issues that sidelined him the last two seasons.
Which brings everyone to the strangest perspective of all as the draft approaches: Simmons, before he has even been picked, is the lone certainty in the Sixers lineup.
“It’s surreal,” he said of the excitement level. “But I’m looking forward to it. I feel like I’ve put in enough work to get to this point. I think everything else will take care of itself.”
Once Simmons actually gets to Philadelphia, he means. The immediate challenge is to not fall on stage.
Scott Howard-Cooper has covered the NBA since 1988. You can e-mail him here and follow him on Twitter.
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