Short story: Simmons barely shooting, from anywhere
PHILADELPHIA » In basketball, in any sport, in anything really, there is a narrow gap between unique and unhelpful. Ben Simmons is spending this NBA season straddling the two. For as long as he has played the game, whether in Australia, in high school, in a counterproductive year at LSU or for the 76ers, Simmons has enjoyed the distinction as being something different. Not that he was the first 6-10 point guard in history, but there weren’t many with his blend of baseline-to-baseline burst and court vision. He could rebound, and he could fill a stat sheet, in a back door way at least. But he could never shoot, never cared to shoot, and bristled whenever asked to shoot more.
To a point, though, it worked. Twice, he has been an All-Star, and his many skills were critical to pushing the 76ers into the last three postseasons. Eventually, it was said by coaches and scouts, announcers and other media apologists, and certainly by Simmons himself, it would all lead to two places: Broad Street for a parade and Springfield, Mass., for his rightful induction in the Hall of Fame.
Then came this season. Then came an approach to his game that will not work in basketball.
Then came his decision, compounded by the way opposing coaches have begun to order him defended, to not only big-time everyone with a refusal to shoot from distance, but with the curious decision to barely shoot at all.
In two recent games against the Eastern Conference champion Miami Heat, which had arrived at the Wells Fargo essentially with a skeleton staff due to injury and virus hedges, Simmons played 67 minutes and he took a total of six shots. In his four most recent games before a 117-109 victory over visiting Boston Wednesday, Simmons averaged 3.25 shots per game. Wednesday night, as he was bothered by foul trouble, he attempted five.
On what level of basketball is it productive for the second biggest player in a regular starting lineup to be so unwilling to shoot? At what stage in the development of an NBA team does it make financial sense for any player with a $167,000,000 contract to be excused for that level of offensive indifference?
And more to the relevance of the Sixers and how they are functioning this year, when did it become acceptable for Simmons to be as dismissive of taking two-point shots as he customarily has been of shooting from distance?
Different, and in a flattering sense, as Simmons is as a player, he had come into the season averaging more than 12 shots per game. Entering play Wednesday, he was averaging just over nine this season. He’d had offseason knee surgery and some lingering knee issues this season, costing him two recent games. But he has not been on any playing-time limits and has shown no decrease in speed or bounce. Doc Rivers has insisted the knee issues are of minimal concern. And overall, Simmons’ on-court activity has been robust.
Accepting that Simmons is playing at full physical capacity, his decreasing willingness to shoot has a few explanations. While the boxscore revealed that he attempted five shots Wednesday, he did intend to shoot more. But the Celtics, who have proven that allowing Simmons to penetrate to a few feet from the basket can be effective, were content to foul him, all the better to try his foul-shooting luck. That strategy failed when Simmons shot 7-for-10 from the line.
Because Joel Embiid is rampaging toward his first MVP award, going for 42 and 10, there is less responsibility for anyone else to shoot. Also, the continuing development of Tobias Harris as the go-to, All-Starlevel scorer he was under Rivers in Los Angeles has changed the Sixers’ offensive power structure.
Simmons is no longer the second star. He is the third. Probably.
Rivers never promised much else. He said all along that he will use Simmons in many ways, implying that scoring was not necessarily near the top of the list. And the Sixers’ record, 10-5, best in the Eastern Conference, will naturally cover earlyseason blemishes.
“I thought Ben was unbelievable defensively, first of all,” Rivers said. “We put him on Kemba (Walker). We put him on Jaylen Brown. We put him on Marcus Smart. It’s amazing what he can do for us, and tonight was a great example of that.”
Rivers’ reputation as a coach flawless, the likelihood is that he has found his own way to maximize Simmons, using him in various positions, asking him to post up, allowing him to create. But if he can prove that over a full NBA season that one of his so-appointed “big
three” stars can be required to shoot just over twice per quarter and that the Sixers win the conference, he will be the Coach of the Year, and it will be unanimous.
Rivers nicely turned Simmons’ story Wednesday into a tribute to his defense. But Walker scored 19 points,
Brown had 26 and Smart 25. A boxscore can have multiple interpretations.
Simmons did, however, show his defensive instincts two-plus minutes into the third quarter when he made an alert steal near midcourt and drove in for a dunk. He hung on the rim, twisted,
then hung some more as the fake crowd noise was amped to rock concert level.
He sure seemed to enjoy the moment. It was his first shot of the night.