Ben Simmons said the NCAA was “really f—ed up” and described the college system as a dirty business in a 2017 interview that has resurfaced as debate over athlete compensation continues. He said the setup held elite high school players hostage so schools could inflate television ratings and ticket sales.
Simmons made the comments in a conversation with Maverick Carter, arguing that he would have learned more by being around professional athletes than he did during his lone season at LSU. He said he did not even know what he learned financially or as a person in college, and added that his last year in Philadelphia taught him more about being a pro than his year in Baton Rouge.
The remarks carry extra weight because Simmons was not speaking as a marginal prospect. He averaged 19.2 points, 11.8 rebounds, 4.8 assists and two steals per game in one spectacular season at LSU before becoming the first overall pick in the 2016 NBA Draft and going to the Philadelphia 76ers. His path is often used to illustrate the one-and-done pipeline that leads elite players from high school through college and into the NBA.
The NCAA does not require high school athletes to attend college before turning professional, but the NBA’s one-and-done rule requires players to be at least 19 and one year removed from high school before declaring for the draft. NCAA president Mark Emmert also said no one forced Simmons to go to LSU, a point that cuts against his view that elite players are trapped by a system that profits from their names and games.
Simmons did not deny that college helped him in some ways. He said it helped, but also felt “very sneaky,” and complained that the demands went beyond basketball into photo shoots, media obligations and other appearances that left him asking what he was getting out of it. The tension at the center of his criticism is simple: he was good enough to fuel the business, but not old enough to control it. That is still the argument beneath the noise whenever college basketball’s best players weigh the price of staying one more year.