Sixer’s fragile shooting pure B.S.

Hi Doug. Merry Christmas to you and yours. What’s your opinion of Philadelphia’s Ben Simmons? I’ve watched some games where it seems he’s not engaged in the game and not with his teammates. I can almost predict his offensive moves (no wonder he has all those rebounds). I respect his athleticism, but give me Kyle Lowry or Fred VanVleet any day to run my team. Am I missing something? — Helen I am not a fan. Yeah, he’s big and he dunks and makes some nice passes, but I will never, ever, ever vote for him for an all-star game or any serious honour, because I think it’s absolutely despicable that he has not even bothered to work on his game to become even a passable shooter. It’s unconscionable that he’s done nothing to get better. And I don’t know if it’s because he’s lazy or afraid, but a guy who cannot or will not shoot in this day and age of NBA basketball is cheating his team. As I watched the Presidents Cup of golf, the compelling format of the U.S. vs. the (nonEurope) World made me think how fascinating it would be to see a similar competition in other sports. Basketball is an obvious candidate. An NBA all-star game pitting the best of the U.S. against the best of the rest would be fantastic, and I think increasingly competitive with each passing year. I’m sure there are a dozen arguments against it, but was wondering if you knew whether anything like this has been considered. — Steve H. I’d be all for that. I think in the past there were concerns that maybe an international team wouldn’t be able to fill out all the positions with worthy all-stars, but those days are gone. I would also suspect it’s been discussed at the league level as a way of juicing up all-star weekend, but frankly, they need to fix the Boring Saturday Shenanigans before tinkering any more with the game. Any chance the Raptors take a run at Detroit’s Andre Drummond in the off-season with him as much as guaranteeing he won’t pick up his option year? He seems to offer a lot of what we’re currently lacking on our roster. — Curtis None. Not only is he not really suited for the way the game is going, I had an NBA scout say this to me this past week: “Drummond? Only guy who can get 20 and 20 and have no impact on the game. Empty stats.” The counterpoint to your rant about blowing the whistle to kill a break is that if they let the play continue, the Raptors get the basket and shoot the tech, but then get the ball back for another possession. If there is an advantage at the front end of the play that is allowed to continue, the bonus possession at the end might be viewed as too much of an advantage: could be a seven-point play with a break three, free throw and another three. I agree with you when it’s in our favour, not so much when it’s not. — Matthew M. Yeah, I don’t think my suggestion is entirely workable, but it is one of those things that get to me. Heaven knows there are much bigger officiating things to work on, but it does seem the current system is somehow unfair.