One of the topics that fell by the wayside during the Sixers’ regular season was a family matter involving Ben Simmons’ sister, Olivia.

It was a complicated and difficult story and a lot of local outlets decided to stay away from it entirely, but the New York Post did touch on Olivia’s allegation that she was molested by their half-brother.

A portion of the newspaper’s April 12th writeup:

…Olivia Simmons is alleging she was molested as a child by the siblings’ half brother, Sean Tribe — who is also the 76ers star’s manager. Tribe is believed to have no business relation to Simmons’ agency, Klutch Sports Group, and his agent Rich Paul.

Olivia went public with her allegations, which she said resulted in years of post-traumatic stress disorder, in a series of tweets beginning on April 6. Olivia stated that the alleged molestation started when she was just 3 years old, and that her mother, Julie Simmons — a sexual abuse survivor, according to her daughter — was allegedly aware. Julie is a fixture at her son’s games in Philadelphia.

Tribe released a statement at the time denying the allegations. Ben never publicly spoked about it, and I do not believe he was asked about the situation on any of his media Zoom calls.

But Doc Rivers was, on Monday, and he gave a thoughtful answer when the AP’s Dan Gelston broached the topic:

Gelston: I’m not saying the two issues were related, but Ben this year had a very public and I’m sure unfortunate situation play out with his family behind the scenes. Did you find that it affected him personally, and at all, ever, on the court?

Rivers: You know, I can’t answer that because I don’t know. But listen, it’s another example of – and I’m trying to say this right – where players are real people. They have real lives. They have real stuff going on. I have never had to deal with the public stuff that Ben had to deal with with my family. But I would say if I had to, it would have affected me in some way or another. I can’t tell you if it affected him on the floor or not, I don’t know that. I just know it would have affected me, in some way. I don’t know how. But it’s not just Ben; all players have (things going on behind the scenes). It’s just all part of it, too, for young players especially, to understand that you have this and you have this and you still have to (come to work and perform), even though you have the other stuff. It’s amazing watching guys go through stuff like that, and some are able to put it into compartments and some are not. As a coach, your job is to teach the ones who don’t do it well, to do it well. I’m sure you’ve had many days where you come to work, and in your home life it may not be a great day. That’s part of it. But you still have to try to figure out how to do your job the best you can. With athletes it’s public, and that’s a lot harder. It’s so much harder for guys now, than when I played. Thank God we didn’t have Instagram or Twitter or any of that stuff.

Gelston: Was it something that you or anybody in the organization talked to him about?

Rivers: Yeah. Yeah, definitely.

You never know what’s going with players’ personal lives. They deal with the same stuff everybody else does, but like Doc notes, they have to live it publicly. We get the benefit of being nobodies, and so our family drama doesn’t spill out onto social media for everybody to see, and for The New York Post to write about. Nobody will ever be able to definitely say that the family issue affected or did not affect Ben’s play, but it was a question worth asking, so good on Dan for going there.