Ben Simmons was in the house for the Nets’ 24-point win against Sacramento on Monday night:

The reactions to that clip were as you would expect:

“So much for mental illness!”

“Looks like he’s ready to play!”

“I guess he was faking it!”

Stuff like that. There’s an ongoing debate between people calling bullshit on Ben and the portion of folks who think it’s off limits to question someone’s mental health and their internal struggles.

We’ve been through this recently as a collective Philadelphia sports community, when Lane Johnson missed three games during this Eagles season. He had the support of the team and a relatively large portion of the fan base. Same thing with Brandon Brooks, who overcame crippling anxiety issues to become a perennial Pro Bowler here.

So what’s the difference?  Why did those guys mostly get positive support while Ben does not?

It’s pretty simple. People don’t believe Ben was dealing with mental health issues because those issues didn’t become a thing until the money dried up. We didn’t hear anything about mental health until he was a few weeks into his holdout, and the Sixers began to “fine him” (read: escrow his money) because he didn’t show up. In chronological order: Ben decided not to attend media day and training camp, he began to be fined, then he came back, half-assed his way through practice with his phone in his pocket, got kicked out of that practice, and was suspended. Only then did we hear about mental health, after two of his properties went up for sale.

You’ll recall Woj reported that Simmons was first resistant to meeting with team doctors:

After initial resistance, Philadelphia 76ers All-Star guard Ben Simmons met with a team-recommended medical specialist to discuss his mental health on Monday, sources told ESPN.

…

The Sixers had begun to fine Simmons for failing to live up to obligations in his contract after they found him to be uncooperative about partnering with them on his mental health and taking the steps needed to work together toward an eventual return to play. As part of the Sixers’ requests, the team wanted him to meet with its own mental health professionals — which Simmons finally did…

This seemed like a reasonable request from the Sixers at the time. Ben was reportedly meeting with his own specialist already, but if the team was going to stop the fines and work with the player, they needed to have him communicate with one of their doctors as well, which Ben ultimately decided to do.

Agent Rich Paul later highlighted the mental health topic in exclusive comments provided to Shams Charania:

“I truly believe the fines, the targeting, the negative publicity shined on the issue — that’s very unnecessary and has furthered the mental health issues for Ben,” Klutch Sports CEO Rich Paul said. “Either you help Ben, or come out and say he’s lying. Which one is it?”

…

“In this case, we have to get Ben help and not put finances above mental health,” Paul said. “As an agent, I understand contractual obligations and I hold myself accountable in this business. But if someone is telling you something, we can no longer turn a blind eye in today’s world.

At the time, this seemed like a heaping platter of horse poop from Klutch. Justifiable fines aside, the Sixers weren’t the ones targeting Ben or shining negative publicity on the issue. That was fans and media. The team played the situation pretty conservatively in the public forum.

And look, there was definitely something to all of this at some point, or to some degree. Ben dealt with a difficult situation last year involving his sister, who alleged that she was molested by their half-brother. It had to be tough to see that reported in the news media. The pressure of playing in Philadelphia and taking a large portion of blame for the Atlanta series loss likely weighed on his mind as well. Then there’s the extreme overarching pressure that comes with being the #1 draft pick. Of course he had a lot of shit to deal with. People with mental health issues aren’t under any obligation to prove their suffering to anyone, and I don’t think anybody is disputing any of that or saying that Ben was in a flawless mental state. I think they’re just pointing to the timeline here, and the timeline looks fishy.

There are folks on the other side who say, “well he’s out of a toxic situation, so of course he’s better now,” and that take feels like it’s coming from Captain Obvious. No shit, right? If you were unhappy at your job and quit, of course you’d feel better. But that doesn’t necessarily mean you suffered mental health issues along the way, it could just mean that you didn’t like your job. Everybody has been in a career or life situation they don’t like, so welcome to the club. Sometimes you find yourself in shitty spots, but it doesn’t automatically correlate to clinical depression or anxiety.

It’s great that mental health is taken more seriously than it used to be. It’s important for people to be a good head space and make time for themselves and prioritize something that used to sit on the back burner. An entire generation of men was taught to bottle it, or else you’d be labeled a wuss or a weakling or something along those lines, and that’s not the case these days. What we can’t do is trivialize mental health by claiming it as an excuse when we’re just having a bad day or going through a rough patch. There are people who have real, serious issues, and they’ve been diagnosed by a doctor and/or take medication to help get through the day. When we cheapen recent gains in the movement to de-stigmatize mental health, we’re doing a disservice to people with real problems, and diluting the progress made by guys like Lane Johnson and Brandon Brooks. That’s the belief from the portion of Sixers fans and NBA fans who think that Ben and his camp were making this up in order to force a trade.

At the end of the day, only Ben knows if it was real.