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One day after his former Sixer teammate Danny Green suggested that his relationship with Ben Simmons wasn’t “cordial” in Philly, Seth Curry pushed back on the notion, saying “The relationship was fine.”
“The relationship was fine,” Curry told ESPN’s Nick Friedell. “He wasn’t around. So I don’t know what [Green] meant by that. ‘Wasn’t cordial,’ I don’t know what that means, but the relationship was fine. He just wasn’t around so we didn’t see him a lot or we didn’t talk a lot.
“But as far as now, he’s on my [team]. I went to battle with him last year, we did a lot of good stuff and I’m going to go to war with who I’m going to go to war with and who’s on my team, so I’m looking forward to getting back out there with him and doing good stuff.”
On his “In the Green Zone” podcast with Harrison Sanford, the veteran guard indicated both Curry and Andre Drummond don’t get along with Simmons. Of course, Simmons sat out the season while waiting for a trade to get him out of Philly.
“Interesting dynamic of things went down. Interesting dynamic of who went with him. i haven’t gotten a chance to talk to those guys yet but I know they weren’t on the most cordial of terms when he was in Philly with Drum and Seth,” Green told Sanford. “So I wonder how that relationship is now. I haven’t got a chance to talk to them.”
Curry, who is now on his eighth NBA team and is the son of someone who played for five teams, said he understands that the league is primarily a business with employer and employee having different interests.
“Business is business,” Curry told ESPN after Thursday’s shootaround. “I said from day [one], even when he was out early in the season, people were asking me if I feel like, if Ben comes back, should he apologize to us or whatever? I understand the business; he doesn’t need to apologize to anybody. When he’s on the court, I know he’s going to do his job and he’s going to do what he does. So I understand the business. He was doing what he felt was best for himself business-wise and personal-wise.”
“And the team’s going to do the same thing as far as making trades or whatever, so I understand it, I’ve been around it; I don’t take anything personal. When we’re on the court, we’re teammates. Everything’s fine. And we depend on each other to do good things. There’s been nothing negative he’s done to me personally, so I’m fine...
“He wanted to be somewhere else and he got what he wanted,”
All that said, on both ends of the NJ Turnpike, Curry told Friedell that he expects to see the Ben Simmons who last year, before his post-season meltdown, dominated, finishing second in the Defensive Player of the Year voting and making his third NBA All-Star team and his second All-Defensive team while averaging 14/7/7 and picking up four triple-doubles.
”Every time he’s on the court, I think good things happen. When he’s out there playing, he’s a talented player and he does great stuff. Even when stuff was rocky with Philly last year, when he’s on the court, all that stuff goes out the window and we play good basketball,” said Curry.
“Him and Joel [Embiid] played good basketball together, even when, like I said, [they had] a rocky relationship. So when he’s on the floor, he’s going to play hard no matter what. He’s a smart player, a talented player, makes everybody better, and I’m looking forward to getting back out there with him.”
More importantly, as Friedell notes, Curry is impressed by what he’s seen on the court since the February 10 blockbuster.
“He looks fine, he looks good,” Curry said of Simmons. “He looks good. Working back physically, he looks all right. He’s been good around the teammates here, looking real upbeat, positive. It looks like he’s in a better place mentally than I saw him earlier in the year. I’m looking forward to getting him back on the court and doing what we got to do.”
Although Drummond didn’t speak with the media about Green’s contention, he had little exposure to Simmons this year, with Drummond joining the team this year and never having played with him previously.
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