All-Star point guard for the Philadelphia 76ers, Ben simmons, passed his physical and met with the team’s main office on Tuesday, but remains ineligible to participate in team-related activities as of Friday at the earliest due to NBA health and safety protocols, they said. the sources to ESPN.
Simmons met with Sixers president of basketball operations Daryl Morey and general manager Elton Brand, his first conversation with them since August, in a meeting that sources described as “brief.”
The Sixers have a preseason game Friday at the Detroit Pistons, and sources said it is too early to know if Simmons will be allowed to play in that game after staying away from the team for the first two weeks of preseason.
A player who is fully vaccinated against COVID-19 and who enters the team environment for the first time must return at least one negative result from a team-supplied polymerase chain reaction (PCR) test before interacting with other players and Level 1 employees, in accordance with NBA protocols obtained by ESPN’s Bobby Marks.
An unvaccinated player must return two negative tests before returning to the premises and participating in individual practice where no other player is present. If the player returns two more negative rapid molecular tests, he may be allowed to interact with his teammates and staff.
Sources told ESPN’s Adrian Wojnarowski that after Simmons’ surprise return to the Sixers before Monday’s preseason game, Simmons took a team-facilitated COVID-19 test, thus beginning his onboarding process.
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