Ben Simmons’ Philadelphia return was the NBA at its soap-operatic finest

Making his first appearance in Philly since demanding a trade last summer, Ben Simmons watched as the Nets dismantled the Sixers with shocking ease in a potential playoff preview

It was the type of night that only the NBA in all its soap-operatic, meme-friendly, hyper-petty splendor can deliver. Ben Simmons' first appearance in Philadelphia since demanding a trade from the 76ers over the summer was always going to be extra in all the messiest ways, but Thursday night's wildly entertaining homecoming somehow managed to exceed the weeks of mounting hype that preceded it.

And not because the game itself was in any way competitive, for it certainly was not. The sellout crowd of 21,408 rollicking fans who came to release more than nine months of pent-up frustration wound up booing their own team in the fourth quarter as the visiting Brooklyn Nets led by as many as 32 points in a wire-to-wire 129-100 beatdown of the hometown Sixers.