Spurs: Picking apart an insulting Ben Simmons trade offer

If you're a diehard San Antonio Spurs fan or NBA fan in general, the chances are high you've messed around with the NBA trade machine before. I've dabbled with it myself from time to time, trying to be as realistic as I can be while also benefitting the Spurs. It's a natural instinct that you're not going to sell your team short in any potential deal. Sometimes, though, we all can get a little carried away.

I can only assume that's what happened when our talented colleagues at The Sixer Sense took their shot at proposing a return for three-time NBA All-Star Ben Simmons. You can read the proposal and the reasoning behind it by clicking here.

To sum it up, the proposed trade involves letting go of Dejounte Murray, Lonnie Walker, Keldon Johnson, and two upcoming first-round draft picks. It also gives the 76ers the right to swap picks with the Spurs in 2022, 2024, and 2026.

I realize Daryl Morey has had a track record of asking for insane return on his personnel in the past, but this is ridiculous. Before jumping too far into this, allow me to do a simple copy and paste of last season's stats for Ben Simmons and Dejounte Murray.

Simmons: 14.3 pts, 7.2 rebs, 6.9 asts, 61% FT
Murray: 15.7 pts, 7.1 rebs, 5.4 asts, 79% FT

I realize including free throw percentage is kind of cheap, but come on, man, you're a point guard. Anyway, am I saying Murray is a better overall player than Simmons? No, but the gap is also not as wide as you think. Ben is undoubtedly a top overall defender and play-maker in the game. But there's also no question that his shooting issues are a real problem at this point.

Asking for Murray and a trove of picks is a fair proposal. Heck, you can throw Lonnie in there as well. But Keldon Johnson? That's where I'd draw the line. Keldon is only 21 years old and not even close to hitting the surface yet. As we've recently written, he arguably has the highest potential to be this team's future cornerstone before too long.

I think this tweet pretty much sums up how Spurs fans feel about the trade proposal in general:

The article goes on to say the Spurs "don’t have a legit All-Star or player with All-Star potential on their roster to send back," which is extremely premature to say about a team with an average age of like, 11.

Nonetheless, we've seen your challenge and have an alternate proposal, Sixer Sense.

Saturday morning, our own Damien Bartonek responded with his counter offer, which you can find here.