This happened on Friday night but wasn’t important enough to warrant a dropping of weekend plans to fire up the laptop.

So we’ll do it right now, instead.

If you missed it, Robert Covington posted a lame comment about Sixers fans. It was actually in response to our video clip with Kyle P and Kyrie Irving, which was picked up by Bleacher Report. Austin Krell then noticed that Covington responded on Instagram:

“Philly at its finest. (shrug emoji).. now you see why he wanted out.” 

The only interpretation of this comment is that it’s a diss aimed at Sixers fans. He’s suggesting that Ben Simmons “wanted out” in part due to his treatment from the fan base, even though Ben came out a few weeks ago and said that forcing his way out had nothing to do with the fans. The Simmons/fan abuse story is 100% fake news and continues to float around the internet anyway.

So Covington rightfully got crushed and decided to backpedal by saying this, among other things:

Cov can say whatever he wants after the fact, but the original comment was myopic and weak. He had a lot of support in Philadelphia and was given the opportunity here to prove himself as a legit 3 and D NBA role player and get himself paid. You have to go back to 2014 to provide the full context. That’s when Sam Hinkie plucked him from the D League and gave him a chance to play on a zero-pressure and zero-expectation team executing the most egregious tank in NBA history. As a result of that super-unique and quirky situation, he became a polarizing player, lionized by the goofy Ricky Sanchez portion of the fan base and demonized by the cranky WIP portion of the fan base. Those factions represent the lunatic fringes, led respectively by one Eskin each, and the pro-Cov side went so far as to fly to Minnesota to watch him play after he was shipped out in the Jimmy Butler deal:

“But wait, that’s only a small portion of weirdo fans!”

Okay, well then let’s check on the reception Covington received when he returned to Philly with Dario Saric after the trade:

Philly at it’s finest, right? Flying to fucking Minnesota in March and giving standing ovations at home.

It’s true that Covington became a pivot for the pro-process vs. anti-process argument, but again, that was loud noise coming from small portions of a vast fan base. Covington didn’t receive any more criticism than Ben Simmons or Joel Embiid. He didn’t receive the same level of scrutiny as Markelle Fultz or the other high draft picks. People didn’t always understand his optically-challenging game (valuing off-ball defense and stuff like that), but I think most average Sixers fans were generally understanding of what he was, which was a solid 3 and D role player with a good story. People were very truly happy for him when he got paid, and a portion of fans suggested bringing him back in future trades.

Covington sniping on social media and then blaming social media is lame. Fans were justified in how they responded, because he got more support here than at any other stop in his NBA career. The only explanation is that that Cov must have some form of amnesia.