You’ve seen it, heard it, felt it all before. This will be the moment Ben Simmons is shot. This video, this in-game representative, this pre-game shooting, this moment, is proof that you are about to take the next step that everyone has been demanding. If you’re on the side of skepticism, believe me, I get it. Roadrunner can only make Wile E. Coyote encounter the desert rock painted as a road so many times.
But in some corners, optimism has not yet been defeated. And after a new wave of videos showed Simmons shooting three (and shooting them right), it was natural to linger a bit on the subject.
“His three-point shot looks good, he shot more than three in practice in recent days than he could have had for nearly half a season,” head coach Brett Brown said Thursday. “He looks good, he feels good, and I know he is getting a lot of encouragement from his teammates.”
And now we go to the races. Could this finally be the time? Is the fan-less environment in Orlando the track for Simmons to let him fly, free from the mockery of the crowd and the usual pressure of an NBA game? Maybe.
That is the message that Simmons himself has chosen to share with the masses. In a video he released on his YouTube channel documenting his back-to-game workouts in Los Angeles, Simmons (and cameraman Alex Subers) made sure to include a long clip of Simmons shooting down shot after shot, moments before an exchange with Detroit Pistons wing Tony Snell.
Snell: You should be shooting a lot more. Your shot looks good.
Simmons: Orlando.
Snell: Orlando? I will be watching.
Simmons: I’m going for it.
Simmons has evidently followed that up with some distance shooting in Orlando. In the Sixers’ footage of the team’s practice, Simmons was seen confidently entering a three-point scrimmage while facing a dropped defense not unlike what rival teams employ against him.
This is the holy grail for Simmons for a reason. Without the jumper, he’s one of the most shocking two-way players in the league, but it’s a simple matchup for opponents to pull off. With any kind of respectable shot (which is certainly a quantum leap from what he has offered so far), defenses will not only have to reconsider how they defend Simmons, but the Sixers as a collective.
That’s what makes people excited about things as simple as a change of position for Simmons. Basketball mostly has no position in 2020, so moving Simmons to all four is almost more remarkable for what he says about Al Horford than what he says about Simmons. Still, juggling early in the lineup and the Philadelphia Quarantine Study has them looking at all the ways they can take advantage of Simmons’ Swiss Army Knife tools.
“You are just using it in many ways and you are looking at all the different ways it can score,” Brown said of Zoom. “I think just because of the variety of ways that we’re trying to use it, [it] helps in some way. The most useful thing is their mentality; has come here with a tremendous spirit. “
One of those ways that doesn’t focus on your sweater? Unleashing Simmons as a screener. It is an area where Simmons certainly thrived as an amateur player, rolling downhill and using his athletic gifts to advance to the edge and finish. The Sixers haven’t scoured it a ton, in part because teams can sink into Simmons, in part because they’ve had a deficit of guards that teams need to chase down the screens.
Shake Milton, the man expected to join the starting lineup, has changed that. In practice, Brown has deployed Simmons amid pick-and-rolls to put him “one step away from the edge,” and Milton’s presence is helping to facilitate that.
“We have not had a lot of guards during my time that defenders are forced to pass. When you have a guard and you have a point guard who tells the defense and scouts the player, ‘we prefer you chase by selection – and roll more than shooting holes and sinking ‘… then the world makes even more sense, “Brown said. “It opens Ben up even more on those honey buns especially.”
“I think when you have a legitimate guard like Shake, and people chase you, I hope I can [run more pick-and-rolls] that we have in the past. “
Three from Simmons? Increased pick-and-rolls? That sounds like music to the ears of most Sixers fans. But we have heard strong complaints before. Brown once demanded at least a three per game from Simmons, only to have that request drop, held up as an example of the coach’s inability to communicate with Simmons. If practice gear were the only thing that mattered, 90 percent of the NBA would be waiting for Hall of Fame calls.
As always, he is at the star in question and the coach is setting up the team to deliver on these promises when games begin. The cycle begins again.
Other Notes
• Simmons’ association with Joel Embiid it is, in many ways, the only thing that really matters for this team in the long run. If they discover how to maximize each other, the sky is the limit. If they can’t improve each other, well, the project may fall apart.
That’s part of what the position switch for Simmons must also accomplish. When Simmons and Embiid play an intimidating ball style, taking advantage of their size and athleticism around the edge, they can rush the defenses in a hurry. The comfortable pick-and-rolls have been successful for the two dating back to Simmons’ rookie year, and Brown hopes to facilitate more work around the rim in Orlando.
“You could see Ben playing a kind of inside position rather than being the main carrier of the ball, you could see that kind of big-big relationship. Hello, hock-in, Joel would be published and Ben would be published.” in what I call a low area on the other side of the floor, “Brown said.” The association, the relationship, the big-big mindset, meeting each other was insanely obvious, something that caught me by surprise when you haven’t played basketball in four months”.
Before anyone points to Embiid-Simmons as the frontcourt for the foreseeable future, Brown noted that this week he featured more looks and focused on heavy clusters. Simmons led a group of five men on Thursday that also featured Furkan Korkmaz, Matisse Thybulle, Tobias Harris and Al Horford. That puts Simmons in charge of most, if not all of creation for others, and back to a traditional base role.
• Josh Richardson’s name is not He’s grown up a lot since the team landed in Orlando, but the new blonde guard has been an integral figure during early practice, to let the coach say so.
“It reminds me of how good a defensive player is,” Brown said Thursday. “It has been outstanding, it has really set the pace for our defense.”
Brown’s chosen style in Orlando so far has been to keep the boys in lineup groups for full practice, rather than mixing and matching teams within the window they have to play. On Thursday, with Simmons flanked by the aforementioned group, Brown joined Richardson and Embiid for the full session, which was common when both men were healthy this year. And with pick-and-rolls supposedly on the rise for the entire team, that duo could see some time running the NBA’s core game.
As a primary initiator, Richardson has his warts, and it’s a big reason why the Miami offense was pedestrianized with Richardson disguised as his best bet last season. Milton’s prospect in the starting lineup thrills, but ultimately adds just another able ballhandler, not necessarily a cool one. Philadelphia’s search for the alpha perimeter is still ongoing.
But it looks like they have options, with the acquisition of the Alec Burks deadline available to bring some instant offense (or at least instant shot attempts) to the floor at any given time. It is not a luxury they have had in the past.
Follow Kyle on Twitter: @KyleNeubeck
Like us on facebook: PhillyVoice Sports
Subscribe to Kyle’s Sixers “The New Slant” podcast at Apple, Googleand Spotify
.
