Sixers coach has connection to Simmons’ family

2:04 PM ET

After winning Tuesday’s NBA draft lottery, the Philadelphia 76ers have the choice of Duke’s 6-8 forward Brandon Ingram and LSU’s 6-10 Ben Simmons, whose family has a connection to 76ers head coach Brett Brown that goes back nearly 30 years.

In Chad Ford’s latest mock draft , the 76ers are projected to choose Simmons, in part because of Brown’s connections to Simmons’ family, about which little has been known. On ESPN’s TrueHoop podcast Thursday, Brown told the story of how he met Ben’s father, David Simmons, in Australia nearly 30 years ago.

Brown, an American, became an assistant coach, to Hall of Famer Lindsay Gaze, with the Melbourne Tigers in 1988.

“Each of the teams in Australia were allowed to have two American imports,” says Brown. “And one of the American imports we had was a player named David Simmons, from Harlem, New York — who is Ben Simmons’ father. The cheerleader — you can’t make this stuff up — the cheerleader that was the head cheerleader of that team ended up marrying David Simmons, our import, who I coached for five years with Lindsay Gaze, and had Ben Simmons their son.”

David Simmons joined the Melbourne Tigers in 1989. His number, 25, was later retired by the Tigers. David Simmons and his wife Julie have two children, Olivia and Ben.

“The Ben Simmons connection, …

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