He makes $33 million and he got 8.25 million on July 1 and (according to Shelburne) 8.25 million on October 1. That means he only has another $16.5 million in salary to lose, and would have only lost (approximately) half of it by this point. And maybe he has a few million more in other fines (including pre-season games).
Now, the Sixers' position might be that they still want all of that money back once he's accrued an entire season of missed games, which is where the arbitration would also come in. That may be the semantic point here - there is a difference between what the team has fined him, and how much of that he actually has to - or has - paid. Until arbitration - which could take a year or more - he can spend that however he wants, and certainly has the mortgages covered.
It's really hard to get a read on that. I mean, clearly, he is just immature, and Rich Paul has to know this isn't helping the kid at this point. But Paul also probably doesn't want to lose the fight.
Honestly it's hard not to fantasize about him finally changing his mind on February 11, with the understanding from all parties that he'll still get traded in July. The kicker in that ESPN story says he still watches every Sixers game. But that is definitely fantasy. Impossible to imagine him doing it and even harder to imagine it going well. But boy, he'd make this team better, even if you think it's been addition by subtraction overall.
I'd say the red flags they missed with Simmons have very little to do with Simmons - just with owners who were too involved and chose to get strong-armed into having a bad front office at the time. That's not to say Hinkie - or Morey - wouldn't have still picked Ben (or Fultz, though probably not under the same circumstances). But Ben's failed development is pretty much on the dysfunctional front office and Brown, by the time Morey and Rivers got here it was too late, which they maybe didn't recognize. Or Houston just was never gonna do the deal.
