Georges Niang Opens up About the Ben Simmons Saga With JJ Redick

The Philadelphia 76ers never made a big splash during the 2021 offseason this past summer. While many expected the Sixers to make a blockbuster trade involving their disgruntled All-Star Ben Simmons, Sixers President of Basketball Operations Daryl Morey stuck to his guns and continues to hold out for the right deal.

Meanwhile, Morey and the 76ers avoided spending big bucks on free agents as well. After they re-signed some prospects such as Danny Green and Furkan Korkmaz, the Sixers did make some low-risk, high-reward signings with the veteran center Andre Drummond and the sharpshooting forward, Georges Niang.

Ever since Drummond and Niang joined the Sixers, they quickly realized they entered a hostile situation as Simmons remained reluctant to play for the team while requesting a trade. Niang specifically had to answer a lot of questions about the Simmons situation over the summer without ever actually playing with him.

While Niang has yet to take the floor with Simmons as the 25-year-old guard remains out due to personal reasons, he has been around the disgruntled star in practice. Early on, when Simmons finally returned after skipping out on camp and the preseason, the young guard was booted from a practice session for being a distraction.

It seems Simmons has toned down his antics when around the team lately. And Georges Niang confirmed that much during a conversation with former 76ers sharpshooter JJ Redick on 'The Old Man and the Three' podcast.

"The crazy part of it is, so I've never played alongside him so I don't know what it's like to have him in practice. So like, obviously those three days I remember being like, it was hard for me to focus in practice, because I was like, what's what, like what's about to happen here, and then eventually like now it's, you know, obviously, he addressed the team. Mentally, he wasn't ready to play or still isn't ready to play. But now it's kind of like, where we're focused on right, who's playing tonight? How are we going to, you know, get through tonight and Doc's made a great point of just being like, 'Hey, we're gonna take it one battle at a time, one day at a time. This is what we have for today. This is how we're gonna make weapons for practice, shootaround.' Whoever is on the active roster to play that night. That's kind of how we're going about it this season. That's kind of the first time I've done that in my career. But I mean, it's worked out for us, you know, like you said, guys have stepped up and it's been solid. But as for the distraction part, for me, it's not a distraction because I don't know what it was like to play alongside him."

The Sixers don't practice that much these days, as the season officially started back in October. As Simmons doesn't travel with the team and has yet to show face on game night, he isn't spending too much time around his teammates this year.

At the start of the 2021-2022 NBA season, it seemed the Simmons saga looming around Philadelphia and Camden would serve as a significant distraction considering all of the attention the situation was getting. However, Niang and his Sixers teammates continue to downplay everything related to Simmons as they focus on the guys who are truly with the organization at this time.

Justin Grasso covers the Philadelphia 76ers for Sports Illustrated. You can follow him for live updates on Twitter: @JGrasso_.