FROM ACROSS THE team's practice gym at the Philadelphia College of Osteopathic Medicine, Ben Simmons spots it: the familiar Sherrin ball of his childhood. The red leather. Oblong with six cross-seams machine-stitched across the top. The silhouette of a kangaroo leaping across its surface.
It's an object he'd devoted hours of his early life learning to control, to manipulate, to master -- the official ball of Australian Rules Football, or "footy," as it's known in the local vernacular.
It's media day before the start of last season, and his Sixers teammate, Joel Embiid, has procured the ball.