Out of time, Brown finally has Simmons in proper position
After so many years of dedicated listening, hand cupped to his ear, eyes closed for concentration, hoping for even the slightest whispers, Brett Brown has finally heard what the gym has been saying about Ben Simmons. Not surprisingly, it was what so many others have been saying for years.
It’s among Brown’s favorite phrases, the one about the gym speaking to him, the activity on the practice floors revealing untold volumes of basketball secrets. It’s how he distributes playing time, chooses rotations and decides who must make the bi-weekly drive-of-shame to Delaware.
The gym talks. He reacts. And in the last two days, not to any particular surprise, Brown has reacted by officially deleting the “point guard” description from Simmons’ job specs. Monday, with authority, the coach of the Orlando 76ers announced that, going forward, Simmons would do exactly that: Go forward, to the four spot. By Tuesday morning, quite likely because of the blow-back he ordinarily receives from the Simmons camp whenever it was suggested that he was not cemented at the point, Brown retreated a little, saying that his All-Star guard would play every position on the floor.
Brown’s plan is solid and overdue. As the sport careens in that direction anyway, Simmons can be basketball’s defining positionless player. His handle is perfect, his court vision legendary, his determination to rebound at the defensive end admirable, his versatility on defense a multi-million-dollar value. He can also finish around the basket with world-class effectiveness.
Just as important in a situation where players are to be tested regularly for a virus and, if unfortunate, could be quarantined for a substantial number of games, it’s vital for Brown to ready a player with the versatility of Simmons to play at any spot on the floor. Maybe one night, he is a point guard. Should a forward fail a virus test the next, he could be a four-man. The Sixers are flush with centers, and Brown is making noises about Joel Embiid playing 35-plus minutes a night. But Simmons would make more sense as a backup to Embiid or Al Horford than, say, Kyle O’Quinn or Norvel Pelle in the sixth game of a playoff series.
At least that’s where is stands early in Training Camp II, with eight regular-season games left, then a postseason that will determine Brown’s immediate career path: Simmons is shifting to the frontcourt, Shake Milton will be handed the ball, and Horford will back up Embiid and stay fresh, at age 34, for critical late-game frontcourt minutes.
“It’s incredibly early,” Brown was saying Tuesday morning, on a video hook-up from Florida. “This is our fourth practice. And we don’t really play a game until the first few days of August. So this is where I have started this particular camp, with Shake with the ball and moving Ben all over the place.”
To a point, that’s unfortunate for the Sixers four years into Simmons’ pro career. When they made him the No. 1 overall pick in the 2016 draft, then unfurled him in summer ball, it was instantly obvious that he was a point guard. Period. His ability to key an offense with a 30-foot entry pass, to swerve into the lane and blindly locate open jump-shooters, to make sure every teammate was able to touch the ball and his ability to go baseline to baseline in about six strides seemed to make him the prototype for the 21st century NBA lead guard.
There was one issue, though. That one.
And after enough postseason opportunities lost because he had a point guard refusing to shoot from more than six feet, including the last one when Jimmy Butler turned that into a sinister public issue all for his own benefits, Brown has surrendered. He knows he can’t keep trying the same policies and expect Josh Harris, who has baseball and football teams to buy, to keep paying him to coach.
Rarely one to go along with any script, and the one who responded to his coach’s request to attempt a singular three-point shot per game by not taking any for the rest of the season, even Simmons has remained calm as his job description has been massaged.
“All of us, once you put us out there, it’s just basketball at the end of the day,” Simmons said Tuesday. “I don’t think the guys are worried too much about the positioning names. At the end of the day, you’ve just got to play.”
That wasn’t the case two years ago when Brown let it slip that his future could be in the frontcourt and Simmons sat defiantly in his Madison Square Garden locker stall saying once, twice and more, “I’m a point guard.” So consider that progress.
The Sixers were trending toward Milton as a starter when the regularseason hit its lengthiest timeout. But that was basically a response to what appeared to be a season-threatening back injury to Simmons. The hiatus having allowed Simmons to heal and Horford to regenerate, it was possible that Brown could have re-committed to his original starting unit, the one he proclaimed during the first training camp was capable of propelling the Sixers into the NBA Finals. Instead, he used the sabbatical to learn. And what he learned was that it is a virtual impossibility to win an NBA championship with a point guard refusing to shoot. Milton, a 43.5-percent distance shooter this season, does not have that problem.
So it will be Milton and Josh Richardson in the backcourt, with Embiid, Tobias Harris and Simmons. Horford, too uncomfortable sharing a frontcourt with Embiid, will provide experience and versatility in reserve.
It should work for Simmons, and it should work for a franchise waiting since 1983 to win a championship.
The gym, even if it was later than so many others, has finally been heard.