My thoughts on Ben Simmons... long read

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Derek Lee

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360Waves said:
I've watched all his SL Games and here's my scouting report:

His game is sloppy as hell. Offensively he is very, very basic. People are saying, "wait till he gets his jumper" but as it is dude barely has any creativity or ability when penetrating either. He tries to do the LBJ straight line drive but lacks the explosiveness and usually gets closed off, at which point, he kicks out for a pass. He doesn't have any counter moves to set himself up when that drive gets stopped, and while his handle is tight for 6'10" he doesn't know how to use it to break down defenders. LeBron at 18 was legit 100x more offensively advanced than Simmons right now, and a better shooter to boot.

When he DOES manage to have a successful drive, he's a surprisingly WEAK finisher. He's one of those players with a robust physique especially for being a rookie, but he gives me the "big for nothing" kind of vibe. He doesn't really use his strength to impose his will on anything. He's afraid of contact on drives and prefers to go finesse, often settling for these weird 1 handed hook-floater shots instead of jumping into the nikka's chest. He's a pretty poor finisher thus far through SL and hasn't show me much of any ability to adjust in air and make impressive lay-ups.

When he gets the ball on offense, you can tell he looks like he wants to score, but doesn't know what to do. While passing is instinctive and natural for him, scoring is not. It's very apparent that he's thinking of what to do and this usually results in overdribbling, sloppy, ugly post-ups, or shut-down drives, which eventually end up in him passing. He tries to be flashy with almost every pass he throws so people get so caught up in the flash that they don't realize it's the 8th possession in the row where the number 1 pick got clamped by some guy who was playing in Cairo this past year.

His jumper is trash. And he has zero confidence in it, to make matters worse. It's Summer League and he's the number 1 pick. He literally has nothing to lose. He's not fighting for a contract. And even then, he's still afraid to take jumpshots against the defense. Pretty much all the other big names drafted after him have had at least 1 if not 2 offensively impressive SL games where you could see the flashes. Even Buddy Hield who is shooting like shyt out there has shown me he's going to be a capable scorer and is waaaay more than just a shooter like many declared.

That being said. He's an incredible passer. It's natural for him, it's like he's got 360 degree vision. He's a great rebounder. And he's big and athletic. He has a skillset that's pretty rare in the league meaning that even if he doesn't pan out he's still going to be on a roster as a contributor for a long time--a la Lamar Odom and Iguodala. But right now, he's NO superstar.
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dreskii

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i'm getting old... and this forum aactually getting old as fukk too..

so old that i remember the threads on sohh during Lebron's SL and alot of the criticism was exactly the same.. people were trying to compare his game to Kobe right off the bat, much like people trying to compare ben simmons to bron right off the bat.

it's been what? 8 games?
 
Box Factory

Box Factory

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Doesn't really help that the sixers coaches are basically asking him to play like Knicks era Mark Jackson.

Let him play off the ball and work on his weaknesses

Edit: didn't realize what was going on here :heh:
 
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