Joel Embiid Couldn't Wait for Ben Simmons Drama to Go Away

The Philadelphia 76ers remained focused on the 2021-2022 NBA season during the Ben Simmons saga. As the three-time All-Star was holding out from the team

The Philadelphia 76ers remained focused on the 2021-2022 NBA season during the Ben Simmons saga. As the three-time All-Star was holding out from the team throughout over 50 games this year, Joel Embiid and the Sixers had to constantly answer questions about the absent star.

For a bit, it seemed the saga would drag out for the remainder of the year as the Sixers didn't have a desirable trade available to them. However, the Brooklyn Nets had a similar issue on their hand, and the two teams swapped stars.

At that point, Embiid was happy to have the Simmons drama behind him. 

"I'm happy that I'm not going to be answering any more questions about that subject," Embiid said last month following the trade. "It's good not just for me, but my teammates and the whole organization. The whole year, it was pretty annoying with the whole situation, but I'm glad that everybody has moved on."

But the Simmons drama didn't go away entirely. While all of the focus was turned to James Harden's debut as a member of the Sixers momentarily, this past Thursday night's game against the Brooklyn Nets generated a lot of noise this week as it was the first time Harden would face his former team, and the first time Simmons would show face at the Wells Fargo Center since last season.

As expected, Simmons didn't play for Brooklyn on Thursday, but he did sit on his team's bench as the Nets dominated Embiid and the Sixers. While Philly's star big man isn't satisfied with the results of Thursday's game, he is happy to have all of the leftover Simmons saga drama behind him, according to Ky Carlin of USA Today's Sixers Wire.

“Yeah,” said the big fella. “I mean, even before the game, I was already tired of all that drama and all that stuff. I didn’t think it was warranted. I just wanted to really get it over with. I wasn’t into it at all. I just want to play basketball and try to win the basketball game we were playing in.”

“

Honestly, I wasn’t focused on the outside noise and whatever people were talking about or really the fans going back and forth,” he added. “I’m glad we passed it.”

Embiid typically gets up for matchups with extra incentive to beat the other team, but the All-Star big man didn't look like the best version of himself on Thursday. Neither did his new co-star James Harden.

Embiid and Harden shot a combined 8-34 from the field against the Nets. While Embiid still scored a game-high of 27 points, a large chunk of his production came from the free-throw line. Meanwhile, Harden had a lack of calls and only visited the charity stripe once.

It's unclear if the off-court drama distracted the Sixers' star duo enough to cause them to have a bad game, but Embiid and Harden are likely both happy to see the Brooklyn drama in the rearview for the remainder of the regular season.

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