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With two days and change to go before Adam Silver takes the podium in Brooklyn, draft rumblings are starting to heat up. After all of the noise and posturing of the month that's followed Philly's victorious lottery night, LSU guard/forward/superhuman Ben Simmons finally worked out for the Sixers this morning in Philadelphia, the Inquirer's Keith Pompey reported. And now, following some clearly well-informed indications from ESPN's Marc Stein, Cleveland.com's Chris Haynes is reporting that the Sixers brass told Simmons' camp this morning that he'll be the top selection on Thursday:
This morning Philadelphia 76ers informed camp of Ben Simmons he would be taken No. 1 in NBA Draft, league sources tell @clevelanddotcom.
— Chris Haynes (@ChrisBHaynes) June 21, 2016
This shouldn't come as much of a surprise, as Stein hinted at earlier, and seeing the report come out of Cleveland shouldn't either. Simmons is a new member of Rich Paul's Klutch Sports Group. Paul has notably represented LeBron James since he entered the league, as well as Tristan Thompson and several others more recently; he's an enormous voice in Cleveland.
These reports are all surfacing around the same time that the Sixers seem to be making a big push for Kris Dunn. Things are really starting to ramp up. 56 hours to go.