Philadelphia 76ers Player On Ben Simmons: "It Was Hard For Me To Focus In Practice..."

It is no secret that the ongoing Ben Simmons saga has been a hot topic in and around the Philadelphia 76ers organization. While many players and team officials have given the fairly standard round of politically correct answers, one player did at least admit that Simmons' presence during training camp was a distraction for the team and made it hard for him to focus on what he was doing:

Obviously those three days, I just remember being like...it was hard for me to focus because like...what's about to happen here?

Georges Niang is new to the team having signed a 2-year $6.7 million contract this past offseason, so he doesn't know how the team practiced before when Ben was there, but he did admit that the situation wasn't easy on the team to start the season on a recent episode of The Old Man & The Three:

He then went on to say that now the team is more focused on taking it day by day and credits head coach Doc Rivers for the team's positive mentality despite the uncertainty regarding the 3x All-Star. He also mentioned how the lack of available players due to injury, COVID protocols, and of course Simmons' absence has made game planning rather simple:

Whoever's on the active roster to play that night, that's kind of how we're going about it this season...

The 76ers currently occupy the 8th seed in the Eastern Conference at 15-15, and figure to only get better if they can figure out a deal for Ben Simmons, who has been linked to as many as seven potential teams, but at least the team doesn't feel like his absence is a distraction to the team and their chemistry on and off the court.