Philadelphia 76ers head coach Doc Rivers was asked about the fairly sluggish start to the season that Ben Simmons has experienced, but the Sixers tactician was having none of it.
The venerable Rivers was quoted by Noah Levick of NBC Sports Philadelphia, saying that the Aussie's uncharacteristic turnover rate doesn't bother him.
“I really don’t care, honestly. I don’t even look. I let the world look at it. Everyone’s going to tell you anyway. I’m not that concerned with it yet. Right now we don’t have enough in to see where any of our guys are at, if we’re going to be honest. And we’re working on it. We had a day today that was important. We worked on a lot of stuff — probably too much, being honest, but we had to. In my opinion, we had no choice. Not that concerned right now,” the Sixers coach explained.
Indeed, that is a reasonable argument for Doc Rivers to make, as the Sixers have been absolutely clobbered by the injury bug and, perhaps more so, the omnipresent specter of COVID-19 has deeply impacted many of the team’s players in multiple games.
Rivers’ thoughts about the early portion of the season seems to be an understandable one, as all players adjust to different factors.
“I swear you’re almost in let’s try to win a game mode right now, and that’s really not the way you should be in this part of the season. You should be working on your execution and in getting better mode. … Let’s figure it out, see what we can do and keep working when we have time,” Rivers added.
Ben Simmons’ 27.0 percent turnover rate for the Sixers this 2020-21 is a career-high, though his 33.4 percent assist rate is right along with his career average in that category.
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