Ben Simmons won a fishing championship in the Bahamas and I’m genuinely happy for him

Ben Simmons and the South Florida Sails won the Walker’s Cay Bahamas Open this past weekend.

Six blue marlin. Three sailfish. A dominant performance in the Sport Fishing Championship, a professional saltwater fishing league with 14 teams and about 12 events on the season.

Ben Simmons is a champion

It happened on a boat in the Bahamas and not on a basketball court in Philadelphia but a title is a title and nobody can take it away from him.

They will never make me hate Ben Simmons.

I don’t care how unpopular that take is. I don’t care that every Sixers fan is supposed to despise him for eternity. I watched him play in Philadelphia for four years. I watched the fast breaks. I watched the passing. I watched the defensive possessions where he locked up the best player on the other team and made it look effortless.

For four years, Ben Simmons was one of the most electrifying players in the NBA when the ball was in his hands and the court was in front of him. Rookie of the Year. Three-time All-Star. Two-time All-Defensive First Team. The talent was never the question.

The shooting was the question. The shooting was always the question. The shooting is what killed everything. The Hawks series. The free throws. The passed-up dunk under the basket against Trae Young that broke the brains of every Sixers fan watching.

The mental health leave. The trade demand. The way he forced his way out of Philadelphia and then proceeded to do absolutely nothing in Brooklyn for the rest of his basketball career. I watched all of it happen in real time and I still don’t hate the guy.

You know why? Because I watched him at 21 years old throwing no-look passes in transition at Wells Fargo Center with the crowd going insane. I watched him guard 1 through 5 in the playoffs and make it look easy.

I watched him will this team through regular season stretches where nobody else could create a shot. The good stuff was really good. The bad stuff was historically bad but I’m not going to sit here and pretend the good stuff didn’t happen just because the ending was ugly.

Ben Simmons Out on the Open Seas and That Makes Me Happy

The man spent the last five years being one of the most ridiculed athletes in the country. Every basketball conversation about him became a joke. Every mention of his name had a punchline stapled to it.

He couldn’t exist in public without someone bringing up the Hawks series or the free throws or the way he left Philly. The basketball world chewed him up and spit him out. He played 100 games in three seasons after leaving. He’s out of the league at 29. First overall pick to retired fisherman in under a decade.

Now he’s in the Bahamas catching blue marlin with the South Florida Sails and you know what? Good. Genuinely good.

No media scrums. No talk show segments about his jump shot. No analysts using his name as a punchline on national television. Just a boat, the Atlantic Ocean, and a fishing rod. If Ben Simmons found peace on the water, I’m not going to mock him for it.

The basketball thing didn’t work out. The fishing thing clearly is. Six blue marlin and three sailfish in a professional tournament is no joke. That’s real skill. That’s competitive drive being channeled into something that doesn’t require a jump shot.

Ben Simmons and the Sails win the Walker’s Clay Open

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The Process Produced a Professional Fisherman

The Sixers drafted Ben Simmons first overall in 2016 to be the cornerstone of The Process. The franchise centerpiece. The guy who was going to lead Philadelphia back to relevance.

Ten years later, the actual franchise cornerstone is Joel Embiid with a supermax contract and zero Conference Finals appearances. The team still hasn’t gotten past the second round since 2001. The front office just fired its president of basketball operations. The owner is running a football team in another city.

Ben Simmons is in the Bahamas catching trophy fish.

I’m not saying he made the right choice. I’m saying he might have accidentally stumbled into the better outcome. The Sixers are a mess. Ben Simmons is on a boat with a championship trophy.

The Process works in ways that nobody could have predicted and honestly, watching the guy who was supposed to be the answer end up as a professional fisherman while the franchise that drafted him is still searching for answers is the kind of poetic absurdity that only the Sixers could produce.

Walker’s Cay Open Champion Forever

You can say whatever you want about Ben Simmons. The shooting. The Hawks series. The way he left. All of it is fair game and I’m not defending any of those decisions. But the man has a championship now.

The Walker’s Cay Bahamas Open.

Six blue marlin. Three sailfish. That goes on the resume next to Rookie of the Year and three All-Star selections. He’s fishing his ass off with the South Florida Sails and living a life that most people would kill for.

I’m happy for him. I really am. Go catch more fish, Ben. Win more tournaments. Stay on the water. The basketball chapter is closed and it ended badly for everyone. But the fishing chapter is just getting started and the man looks like he’s thriving.

They will never make me hate Ben Simmons. Not even close.

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