Philadelphia 76ers Rumors
After a lacklustre performance against Canada on Friday night, the Australian Boomers bounced back with an impressive 81-73 win at RAC Arena in Perth. Jonah Bolden was the star of the show, coming off the bench with 12 points on 5-of-7 shooting, swinging momentum Australia’s way in the third quarter with multiple game-changing plays.
Kyle Neubeck: Lorena Torres-Ronda, formerly the Sports Science Coordinator for the San Antonio Spurs, will be hired as the Performance Director for the Sixers, I’m told. Expect there will be more staff announcements for Philly in the coming days.
Fred Katz: Wizards announce preseason schedule: Oct. 7: vs. NYK Oct. 9: vs Guangzhou Long-Lions Oct. 11: @ NYK Oct. 13: vs. MIL Oct. 18: @ PHI
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Josh Richardson, an avid soccer fan, was in Miami for the Barcelona-Napoli match and spoke to Chris Fischer of NBC6 South Florida. It sounds like Richardson, acquired in the sign-and-trade deal involving Jimmy Butler, is looking forward to taking on his former team. “Honestly, when I come back here, I want to kill the Heat,” Richardson said. “I want to beat them by 20. That’s just how I’m built. If I was on the Heat, I would want to beat Philly by 50 because that’s just how the rivalry, how are teams went.”
NBA superstar Ben Simmons has copped the full wrath of Australia’s tall poppy syndrome, and Boomers coach Andrej Lemanis doesn’t like it. Simmons had already been heavily criticised for pulling out of Australia’s World Cup campaign and the warm-up games against Canada and the US. But the negative attention has gone into overdrive since Simmons touched down in Australia recently.
“That sort of stuff bothers me,” Lemanis said of the criticism directed at Simmons. “Ben’s at the high end of that (criticism) because of the superstar status that he carries. But I saw when Bogut was coming through and people used to get on him. These guys are passionate about playing for their country, and they want to play.”
