Joel Embiid, Ben Simmons Could Develop Voice Like James Later On

Philadelphia 76ers center Joel Embiid and perhaps even forward Ben Simmons could develop a voice as strong as LeBron James‘ later on in their careers.

The Philadelphia 76ers are far from being a team anything like LeBron James’ teams have been over the past 10 years. James, who is almost without a doubt the most dominant and possibly the most skilled player in the league, has transformed both the Miami Heat and Cleveland Cavaliers over the past several years to become great teams, and has went out and gotten himself three championship rings.

Since James is so prolific on the court, his voice off of the court is well respected by team general manager David Griffin. James often says things, and speaks them into existence because of how much the Cavs seem to want to cater to James.

While it could be coincidence, it’s probably not. When you’ve got a player as good as James, you want to do anything you can to please him and make sure he’s happy. Recently, we’ve heard James say, and also had reports of him saying things, that indicate the Cavs may be up to something in the trade market.

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The Cavs are a good team, that much is certain. The Cavs have the best record in the Eastern Conference, and lead the next team up by three games. While the Western Conference is stacked a bit more closely and with less losses all around at the moment, the Cavs have impressed. Coming off of their incredible 3-1 deficit comeback in the NBA Finals last year, the team looked to repeat.

But with their likely enemy in the Final this year — the Golden State Warriors — getting Kevin Durant this summer, things may be difficult for the Cavs. So James is looking at the trade deadline and wondering what can be done to help the Cavs.

So, with the deadline coming up, James spoke about the Cavs needing another point guard. He felt that the two the Cavs had simply wasn’t enough, and that another playmaker would help the team. He’s probably right, and the Cavs listened to him, even going so far as to reaching out to the Sixers to see what T.J. McConnell would cost for the Cavs.

The low price offered for McConnell kept him in Philly, but that’s not the point. The point is that James can say things, and they will happen. While James has denied that he acts as any sort of manager, he can’t deny that his opinion is valued by the team.

There were also reports that James is pushing for the Cavs to pursue Carmelo Anthony, a player that the New York Knicks seem to want to move, despite his no-trade clause.

With that in mind, one has to wonder whether or not something like this will ever occur for the Sixers. Over the last few years, it’s evident that player opinions meant almost nothing. The Sixers were a bad team with no players that were really great, and the Sixers weren’t exactly looking to win anyway. But the new core looks to be legendary, and if the Sixers’ fans hopes and dreams play out, Simmons may be as close to James as a player in this generation will ever be.

I’m not saying that’s my prediction on him, but that’s the hope in Philly.

All the while, Joel Embiid looks as if he could be one of the best bigs of the next few generations. That’s not a rare statement to be made nowadays, which is interesting considering we’ve seen Embiid play less than 50 NBA games total in his career.

With that in mind, the Sixers will probably want to cater to those players — given that they fill out the way that is anticipated — similar to how the Cavs want to cater to James. So will Embiid and Simmons have voices?

Some have already hypothesized that Embiid does have a voice. Embiid voiced an opinion earlier this year that he was best defensively with Nerlens Noel, and shortly after the Sixers had implied that Noel was going to be out of the rotation, Okafor was replaced with Noel. Why did the team switch up all of a sudden? It seems like Embiid’s opinion had something to do with it.

This was something I discussed on the Philadelphia Sports Table Podcast as a guest. The Sixers probably didn’t hear Embiid and change for the sake of him wanting them to, but they probably did take what he was saying into consideration, think about it, and decided that he wasn’t wrong about it working.

There’s a difference between allowing a player to run the organization and taking their opinions into account when making executive decisions.

So, will these players have some say in the moves the Sixers make? Looking at how Bryan Colangelo, team president and general manager, runs things, probably not. There’s no reason to believe he’s going to relinquish any of his own power to his players. That said, it does seem like he’s willing to listen to his players, and willing to see if things they say make sense.

While I’m not necessarily looking for a team to give players executive control — heck, I’m even against coaches being presidents of basketball operations — I do think that the Sixers should listen to their players on occasion, and take into account their thoughts. A team that does that can keep players happy, and keep players re-signing as long as they want.

Really, it’s all about balance. As a general manager, you want to take everyone’s thoughts into consideration. The coaches, the players, the fans, they all have different perspectives. To ignore the thought processes would be foolish. The hard part is coming up with one plan that works best from all of that. Still, that’s what Colangelo signed up for.