i'm buying ben simmons stock

ben simmons might be underrated at this point

jamie asks: is ben simmons shooting with the wrong hand and does he have the work ethic to ever build a shot?

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i don't know if he's shooting with the wrong hand or not. he's naturally right-handed and i remember jj redick saying ben's shooting form looks better right-handed during a podcast episode, but that's not really enough information for me to go off of and i don't know the man so i'm not going to speculate on something like that.

what i do know is the form is terrible and the elbow is painful to look at, but the dude can shoot. i'm 100% positive simmons could roll into any random pickup game around the country and light the gym up from midrange and the 3. every single nba player can; they've played way too much basketball in their lives to not be able to.

these clips are obviously handpicked made baskets, but those shots he's hitting are all pro-level jumpers. ben also shot 67% in high school / college and 60% in the league from the free throw line, which is honestly not even that poor: mathematically speaking, intentionally fouling simmons (1.2 points-per-possession) is easily a -EV strategy for defenses in the long run.

i'm pretty confident that ben is physically a capable shooter, broken form and all. the real question is the mental aspect of it: does he believe he can shoot in nba games? again, it's tough for me to speculate on where he is mentally and how difficult it'd be to overcome whatever mental hurdle he has.

but here's my guess: i don't think he'll ever become a great or even good shooter in the league, but he'll get to the point where he'll pop a few jumpers when he's wide open just to keep defenses honest. he'll hit some and get over the hesitancy of going to the line. and i think this development will happen sooner than most people think it will.

my reasoning? confidence comes from the amount of work you put in. if you shoot a ton of shots in practice and you know you're putting in the work to improve your shot, you will eventually believe that you have the right to shoot in games. that's where giannis antetokounmpo is right now. sure, giannis will airball some shots here and there and hit all glass on others. it might be embarrassing to watch occasionally, and people will question his shot selection, but he'll keep on shooting. he'll take 14 seconds at the free throw line while 20,000 people count from 1 to 14 to try to speed him up - he doesn't give a single fuck. because he puts in the work.

i think ben puts in a lot of work to improve his game. most fans don't see it because his jumpshot hasn't improved, but every year he's been noticeably better in several areas: on and off-ball defense, playing off-the-ball in the half court, physicality. his defense now gets the recognition it deserves, but i've been incredibly impressed with how good he's become as a screener and cutter and playing out of the dunker spot.

so saying ben doesn't have the work ethic to improve is ludicrous to me; i just think he hasn't spent much of it working on his shot. i feel like he's doubled down on what he's good at, which is a hell of a lot of things, and it's brought him great success: rookie of the year, 3x all star, 2x all defense, 1x all nba, a few respectable playoff runs, $190+ million dollars. the guy just turned 25 years old - seriously, if it were you would you suddenly start changing your routine? there was never a real need to.

until now, perhaps. the online basketball world hasn't been kind to ben simmons this summer. his future with the philadelphia 76ers seems uncertain. for the first time, people are really questioning his value. and maybe that's the wake up call he needed.

i'm optimistic.

now here's my super hot take: i actually don't think ben simmons even needs to develop a legitimate jumper to be great.

before i get into that, i have to give a quick shoutout to sideline sprint:

i use two (and only two) sources for all of my sports news. the first is twitter, which is probably pretty self-explanatory. the second is sideline sprint.

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it'd be incredible for simmons if he could ever develop an outside shot like jason kidd eventually did over the course of his career, but i don't think that'll happen and i don't think he necessarily even needs it.

the guy is 6'10", with eagle vision. he's always one of the league leaders in creating threes for his team, despite shooting none himself. his problem is not that he can't shoot, but that he won't shoot. if he continues to be a reluctant scorer in the half court, it may start to limit his playmaking ability as help defenders will learn to not overhelp off of their assignments.

effective passing comes from scoring: i.e. you have to be a threat to score to make defenses rotate, which then leads to an advantage for a teammate. at his size, ben literally just has to be aggressive and attempt to score to solve this problem, which i'd imagine is a relatively easy fix (again, not sure about the mental stuff, could be more complicated).

back to the size thing. guards like kidd or rajon rondo need to learn how to shoot so they can be more of a scoring threat; ben doesn't. he's fucking 6'10". even if his outside shot is never respected, and opponents just give him space, all he has to do is eat up the space, dribble closer to the basket, and be able to hit a 12-footer with reasonable consistency. it could be a floater, a push shot, a hook shot, anything. if he develops that, he'll be more than good. there's really no need for him to ever be a guy shooting turnaround fadeaways or splashing from 24 feet.

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eduardo luis asks: would trading for ben simmons definitively make the warriors (or any other team for that matter) better? taking into account who they would have to give up (and the subsequent rotations the coach would have to come up with) as well as the salary they would have to take on.

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unequivocally yes.

the guy is excellent at basically every facet of basketball other than shooting. granted, shooting is an important part of the sport, but as i explained above i think simmons will turn out to be just fine in that regard.

out of all of the teams in the nba, the sixers are quite possibly the worst fit for him. having simmons and joel embiid on the same team limits both of them at the same time. ben needs to play in space to thrive; philly's best lineups give him none of it.

and yet, they've been effective. lineups with embiid and simmons and a shooter (e.g. seth curry) constantly rank as some of the best lineups in the league, even in these most recent playoffs when ben played perhaps the worst offensive basketball of his life.

i don't think it would take much to unlock simmons' game. here's the ideal situation for him:

• he's a small-ball point-center

• he plays with at least one dynamic guard who can score and create

• he's the release valve when teams trap said dynamic guard up top

ben's half court game is actually pretty versatile. he can bring the ball up and initiate offensive sets. he can be either the ball handler or screener in the pick-and-roll. he can live in the dunker spot. he can post up occasionally with the right mismatch.

but he'd be unstoppable attacking in an advantage spot (e.g. 4 on 3 as the release valve from a high pnr) with space. which would happen all the time if he played with an elite guard, something virtually every nba team other than the sixers has. playing with jimmy butler was the closest thing to it (to clarify: jimmy is elite, but he’s not much of an outside threat himself - i’m talking about elite perimeter-playing guards), and it's not a coincidence the sixers were legitimate contenders that year.

if he could go to a team with one (or hell, two) of those guys like the golden state warriors or the portland trail blazers, it would be a wrap. ben with steph curry and klay thompson or damian lillard and cj mccollum? with no one clogging up the lane? come on.

i hope he gets the chance to play somewhere else. i'm buying up all the ben simmons stock right now.

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