![]() Which is not to suggest all one-and-done prospects approach college this way. "I do think there was a lack of team chemistry," Swade said. And you don't need to know anything else about anything else to understand why LSU struggled from start to finish and didn't even come close to making the NCAA Tournament. But when Simmons enters the locker room, big smile, all joy, he's met with. The player enters the locker room and his teammates immediately swarm him. And I've seen this scene enough to know how it usually goes down. Simmons finished with 36 points and 14 rebounds. In one scene, he's held on the court to do a postgame television interview while the rest of LSU's players head directly to the locker room. He doesn't seem to have a good relationship with his teammates. Simmons doesn't appear to have many, if any, friends around campus. What you watch transpire through the film is a young person go from wide-eyed and excited to super-jaded and alone. Truth is, they were there with him a lot - first in his native country of Australia, then during his final year of high school in Orlando, then during his only year of college in Baton Rouge, and all the way through the 2016 NBA Draft in New York, where Simmons was selected first overall by the Philadelphia Sixers. "He was frustrated in that moment," Swade said. It's what led to the quote that's created the most buzz over the past week. And all of this, stacked on top of each other, is getting to him. He's watching networks and universities use his likeness to generate revenue. It's not a stretch to suggest, even at that time, that he's probably worth hundreds of millions of dollars. Here's a guy who is merely months from signing a $20 million guaranteed contract with Nike. And suddenly it kind of hits him that he'd love cash back but that his checking account is nearly empty. Simmons, then a freshman at LSU, is buying bedding at a local Wal-Mart. To be fair, though, that one moment is a fascinating scene in a 91-minute film that provides a unique, if not unprecedented, look behind the curtain of what it's like to spend a year in college, in this era, as the next great basketball thing. So I just hope that, as a result of all of this attention, people actually do see the film and are able to take away everything that transpires - and not just that one moment." But that's only a very small part of the picture and the story we tell. ET Friday on Showtime, told me by phone this week. "I understand why that's what has gotten traction," Swade, co-director of "One & Done," which debuts at 9 p.m. And he totally gets why the one headline on most of the stories written about the documentary he spent much of the past two years making has been what it's been.īecause, yes, Ben Simmons really did say the NCAA is "f-ed up."Īnd, Swade knows, that's a great headline. ![]() There can only be one headline on every story.
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