On Tuesday, ESPN’s Adrian Wojnarowski reported what has been bandied about online for months: that Philadelphia 76ers All-Star Ben Simmons won’t report to training camp and is done playing for the team.
Simmons has had an acrimonious offseason with the Sixers after he turned in a stinker of a playoff performance against the Atlanta Hawks that basically forced a divorce between the two sides. Naturally, his camp at Klutch Sports has been pushing stories explaining why he wants out, all while the 76ers have attempted to swap him in monstrously unrealistic trade packages that they’ve reportedly floated to the Golden State Warriors, among others.
In Philadelphia sports radio land, it appears as though Tuesday’s Woj bomb, on the heels of a summer full of salacious basketball rumors, has set the shock jocks off. Mike Missanelli of the “Mike Missanelli Show” on 97.5 The Fanatic specifically has had just about enough of West Coast reporters sticking up for Simmons, who’s repped by the same influential agency as LeBron James. So he went on a dramatic rant, invoking both a Lakers reporter and a Warriors reporter for perceived crimes against the humanity.
“There’s a difference between proper journalism, which I see the death of with this social media crap, and all these people out on social media reporting nonsense, trying to curry favor with high-powered agencies, in the hopes that they’ll get some information about LeBron James,” Missanelli said.
He then mentioned Harrison Faigen, who is a Lakers beat writer and editor-in-chief of Silver Screen and Roll, an SB Nation website. Faigen posted a pretty inoffensive joke about why Simmons might not want to play in Philadelphia anymore, which Missanelli took as an affront. First, though, he admitted he did not know what SB Nation is, which makes his accusation that Faigen is pro-Lakers, pro-LeBron, and pro-Rich Paul/Klutch Sports a little more dubious.
“A total kiss-up effort to the Klutch Agency Group, like Ben Simmons has done nothing wrong,” Missanelli said.
Missanelli’s second call-out was a little ruder — he brought up Jason Dumas, sports director at KRON4 News, who’s reporting that part of why Simmons doesn’t want to go to camp is he expects fans to show up and boo him.
When Missanelli brought up Dumas’ report, he added a dismissive “whoever he is.” And here’s the thing: As Dumas later tweeted, he’s from Philadelphia, and interned for Missanelli. So Missanelli is either a crappy boss or he’s pretending not to remember someone for the sound bite.
Anyway, here’s what Missanelli said about Dumas: “Did you go to bed thinking that you could put some stupid-ass narrative on social media and have the nation believe it? We live in this city! We have never heard one inkling of that!”
Missanelli concluded his tantrum with a literal “bleep you!” for both Faigen and Dumas. Alas, Ben Simmons is still not going to report to training camp.
