JUST SAY NO
No deal: Rockets could be on brink of colossal organizational misstep
Sep 23, 2021, 2:44 pm
Shooting is kind of a big deal in basketball. Photo by Kevin C. Cox/Getty Images.
Don't think Elias Sports Bureau keeps track of this sort of thing, but Houston has to be the first city weird enough to have two pro sports teams tell their highest-paid stars, under contract for hundreds of millions of dollars, "We know you're not injured, we just don't want you to play for us. You don't even have to show up for games. Don't worry, we'll still pay you."
If media reports are correct, the Houston Rockets are on the verge of trading one of those players, John Wall, to the Philadelphia 76'ers for Ben Simmons, who's threatening to sit out the season unless he's moved to another team.
This would be a trade involving one player whose team refuses to play him for a player who refuses to play for his team.
This would be such a horrible trade for the Rockets it's a miracle it hasn't been made yet. Here's all you need to know about Ben Simmons:
The NBA is a 3-point league and Ben Simmons can't shoot threes. The end.
Not only can't he shoot threes, he won't even attempt them. In his four years as an NBA starter, he's tried only 35 threes and made only five. Five 3-pointers in four years! Steph Curry makes five 3-pointers during the national anthem.
Simmons played 58 games last year, averaging 32 minutes a game. That's fulltime work. He made three of 10 shots from long range. His career 3-point percentage is 14.7 percent.
Simmons' refusal to shoot 3-pointers, and miss the ones he does try on rare occasions, is an occupational hazard the Rockets can't afford this year. Simmons is a 6-ft. 11 point guard, unique in the NBA. Unique isn't always a good thing. Jerry Seinfeld once convinced Babu Bhatt to open a Pakistani restaurant, said it would be unique on the Manhattan's upper west side. Yadda, yadda, Babu wound up getting deported.
This is why owners should hire 10-year-olds as general managers. Kids don't need a stat sheet to know who can play and who can't. A child can watch Ben Simmons play a season, single-handedly stink up a playoff series, mope around the locker room, pass up open shots, have his work ethic questioned, demand to be traded, and know that Simmons isn't what the Houston Rockets need.
He's 25 years old and still isn't sure if he's right-handed or left-handed?
With his team's season on the line in the playoffs, Simmons shot 25 for 73 … from the free throw line! Over a seven-game series, which the 76'ers lost, he took only three shots in the fourth quarter when the chips were down.
Sorry, Houston already has a "Clutch" comedy figure.
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How mounting mistakes make Astros setbacks harder to ignore
Jul 10, 2025, 3:10 pm
The late ex-catcher and longtime broadcaster Joe Garagiola wrote a book called “Baseball is a Funny Game.” He wasn’t kidding, whether he meant funny as amusing, peculiar, or both (he meant both). The Astros lived it this past week, following a very satisfying three-game slap down of a previously red-hot Dodgers team in Los Angeles by having a Cleveland Guardians squad that staggered into Houston on a 10-game losing streak sweep the Astros three straight. As I put it during one of our “Stone Cold ‘Stros” podcast episodes this week: baseball, like a word that rhymes with spit, happens. The Astros try to clean it up this weekend with a chance to kick dirt on the Texas Rangers’ presently extremely faint American League West hopes. While no fun to endure, the Astros getting swept is no big deal. They weren’t going the rest of the season without any more bumps in the road. Unless they falter badly and/or Seattle has a huge rest of the way, the Astros' 29-10 surge before the Cleveland series is the stretch that will most define them making the playoffs for the ninth year in a row. The Astros hadn’t lost a home series since early April. Their longest losing streak all season remains just three games. They have to beat the Rangers Friday night to keep it that way.
Erratic starting pitchers Lance McCullers and Jack Leiter match up in the series opener, then it’s a pair of humdinger matchups. Saturday Framber Valdez goes to battle opposite Jacob deGrom. Sunday Hunter Brown starts on four days rest for just the second time this season countering the Arlington team’s Nathan Eovaldi. Framber tries to bounce back from his worst showing in over two months. Brown tries to rebound from his worst start since July 6 of last year. deGrom is quite a story. There has been no more dominant starting pitcher in his generation. It’s just that deGrom almost makes McCullers’s injury history look not so bad. Jacob deGrom won National League Rookie of the Year in 2014. He won back-to-back NL Cy Young Awards in 2018 and 2019, then finished third in the short 2020 COVID season. In 2021 he was off to what if maintained would have been one of the greatest seasons ever. 15 starts with a 1.08 earned run average. 92 innings pitched, a comical total of just 40 hits allowed, with only 11 walks, and 146 strikeouts. Sicko stuff. Then his shoulder fell off. deGrom missed over a year, came back and made 11 starts in 2022. All of that as a New York Met. The Rangers then crossed their fingers and gave him a five-year 185-million dollar free agent contract. DeGrom lasted six starts in 2023 before needing his second Tommy John surgery. The Rangers of course went on to win the World Series without him. deGrom returned to throw 10 innings late last season and looked good. With everyone around the Rangers holding their breath, deGrom has not missed a start this season. While not striking out batters near his rate in the past, deGrom has been fabulous. He’ll take the mound against the Astros sporting a 9-2 record (for a losing team) and 2.29 ERA. deGrom's career ERA is 2.50. He is 37 years old.
Options dwindling
All you can ask of players is that they prepare well, be mentally focused, and play their best. There is only so much juice to be squeezed from lemons. Zack Short, Cooper Hummel, and Taylor Trammell each played every inning of the Guardians series. They are 30, 30, and 27 years old respectively. Short has the highest career big league batting average of the three. That average is .169. Hummel sits at .167, Trammell at .165. Short went zero for 11 with seven strikeouts. Hummel went one for eleven and struck out in his last six at bats. Trammell actually had a good series going three for eleven including a three-run homer and a double. Bigger picture, manager Joe Espada is filling out a lineup card with one hand tied behind his back.
Espada’s task got no easier with the latest seemingly Astros-nomically inept medical work. It is mind-blowingly ridiculous that Jake Meyers further damaged a calf muscle while taking the field Wednesday night, just three days after he left a game with that calf ailing him. Organizationally the Astros look like a clown show on this (pretty sure Kyle Tucker and Yordan Alvarez would co-sign). At least the All-Star break arriving after play Sunday will cover four days of Meyers’s absence, which is a good bet to extend beyond that, maybe well beyond that. That absence will be sorely felt. Beyond his elite patrol work in center field, Meyers’s offense this season made the leap from atrocious to well above average. About to come off the injured list, Chas McCormick gets one last chance to revive his Astros’ career. Decent prospect Jacob Melton is a center fielder who remains out injured. Kenedy Corona was called up this week when Christian Walker went on paternity leave. Corona also plays center field but is not a meaningful prospect. If Meyers is to miss months not weeks, general manager Dana Brown almost has to pursue an outfielder via trade.
For Astro-centric conversation, join Brandon Strange, Josh Jordan, and me for the Stone Cold ‘Stros podcast which drops each Monday afternoon, with an additional episode now on Thursday. Click here to catch!
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