Nets' Ben Simmons Rips 'Disrespectful' Online Trolls Who Say He's 'Robbing' Teams
October 10, 2024
Brooklyn Nets guard Ben Simmons is firing back at critics who believe he's unworthy of his astronomical contract.
"People make comments saying I'm robbing. No. When I got that contract, I was playing at a super high level. Unfortunately, I had injuries," Simmons told Brian Lewis of the New York Post. "But for somebody to say that, it's disrespectful. [But] people can say what they want to say. They've got to live with it. At the end of the day it all catches up with you."
Simmons is set to make a whopping $40.3 million this season, the final year of the five-year, $177 million deal he signed while playing for the Philadelphia 76ers. After being acquired by the Nets in February 2022, he's missed 189 of 246 regular-season games for the team due to mental health issues and two procedures on his back. He was limited to just 15 games during the 2023-24 campaign.
The 28-year-old told Lewis that he's been avoiding online trolls in hopes of silencing the noise as he prepares for the upcoming year.
"To me, being on a social media platform where you're just taking in what everybody's saying, I don't think that's healthy for anybody to just be reading things about themselves," Simmons said. "For me, I don't personally go on Twitter or X just because I don't find any use in it."
Despite his lack of availability in recent years, Simmons is one of the most experienced players on a young, rebuilding Brooklyn team and new Nets head coach Jordi Fernandez is pleased with what he's seen from him so far.
"A healthy Ben Simmons is a very, very good player — that's what I focus on," Fernandez said. "I don't have social media. I know that at the end of the day, social media brings the worst out of people, because if you want to be heard you have to say something negative. And always one negative trumps 10 positives. [But] I'm happy with where Ben is, how he's showing up every day."
Simmons and the Nets will open the 2024-25 season on Oct. 23 against the Atlanta Hawks.