Injury to Ben Simmons Reveals Flaws in 76ers’ Radical Rebuilding Process

The Philadelphia 76ers’ petri dish has a new germ for us to study: Ben Simmons’ fractured foot.

It might be little more than an organic, unpredictable sports injury.

Yet when it comes to the 76ers and their experimental rebuilding process, closer scrutiny is warranted.

That comes with the territory when you employ radical approaches. And even if former GM Sam Hinkie undervalued how sports are more about people than business and science, the new techniques—good and bad—at least force us to look at things in different ways.

Now Simmons is hurt (projected to miss three months), and there are a myriad of topics to ponder. Let’s explore some of the potential conclusions before focusing on the one that really needs to be remembered.

• The string of injuries to the 76ers’ draftees is a reflection of youth sports today: players’ repetitive motions from specialization too early breaking down young bodies.

Well, maybe Nerlens Noel’s and Jahlil Okafor’s knees have been overworked. But Joel Embiid didn’t start playing basketball until he was 15, and Simmons played plenty of Australian rules football and rugby along with basketball as a kid. 

This is really more a statement on how risky it is to invest in people with injuries—as the 76ers have done repeatedly, including going into last season with point guards Kendall Marshall and Tony Wroten recovering from torn ACLs. Other guys are inevitably going to get hurt (as in Simmons’ case), so taking too many chances on injuries runs the risk of leaving too few healthy and strong bodies to compete.

• Simmons’ absence creates yet another opportunity for Philadelphia to slow-play its rebuilding, being overly cautious with Simmons’ health and making its 2016-17 record as bad as possible for draft positioning.

Hopefully current GM Bryan Colangelo won’t go overboard with this and will let Simmons play as soon as he safely can. These kids need to gain experience in order to learn, improve and believe in themselves at the NBA level. Again, it goes back to them being human beings, not assets.

• Simmons’ broken bone is yet another NBA case for the study of vitamin D deficiency weakening bones (even though there is no reason to suspect complications …

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