Adrian Wojnarowski has a Ben Simmons story up at ESPN, explaining that the franchise spoke with his agent Rich Paul in Chicago this week.

Woj:

Paul met with president of basketball operations Daryl Morey and general manager Elton Brand at the pre-draft combine to begin evaluating the next steps in Simmons’ Sixers career, sources said.

Paul engaged the Sixers on whether it makes sense to work together to find a trade before the start of next season, but no request was made and the sides are expected to continue talking ahead of the July 29 NBA draft and August free agency, sources said. The 76ers are committed to keeping Simmons as a central piece of their franchise, sources said.

…

Teams have been using the Chicago pre-draft camp to gauge the Sixers’ interest in trade packages, sources said, although Philadelphia remains reluctant to break up the tandem of Joel Embiid and Simmons without maximizing a return and exhausting all possibilities to improve Simmons’ offense, sources said.

Sniff sniff. Smells like bullshit. Hopefully it is.

If Daryl Morey gets the right offer, he’ll move Simmons, and he should. Enough already. They aren’t gonna win anything with him on the roster.