Ben Simmons: The NBA's next big thing
Ben SimmonsThere is a new phenom taking over college basketball, his name is Ben Simmons and he will soon be a top 3 pick in the 2016 NBA Draft. But first, the 6’10” power forward from Lousiana State University (LSU), must pass through or, more rightly so, destroy America’s minor leagues before he takes his talents to the top league in the world.And what talents he possesses! Describing him as a power forward doesn’t do justice to how he actually plays on the court, a mixture of high-end passing, close to elite rebounding, a dash of driving ability, and some solid defense. Simmons really plays like a point forward, taking the ball up court a lot for the Tigers, and doing a lot to initiate the offense and set his teammates up for scoring chances. In some ways, he looks like a bigger Boston Celtics Rajon Rondo. In short, what Simmons looks like is the best college freshman since 2006-2007 when Kevin Durant came out blowing the doors off as a freshman. They are two vastly different players that can greatly affect the game, trapped with average teammates who could eventually short circuit their freshman season before any of us want to stop watching. After watching highlights of Simmons in his first four games, I decided to sit down and watch his most recent game against North Carolina State, and while I would have liked to see some more assertiveness from the young gun, I came away thoroughly impressed with the potential next NBA superstar.
#1 Scoring
One word, rudimentary. This is where the Celtics Rondo comparison first popped into my head because sometimes it seems like Simmons is reluctant to even look for his shot. It’s one thing to not be great at scoring at the precocious age of 19, but you would like to see someone this talented look to get some points on the board.
In the NC State game, he did not take his first shot until under 3 minutes into the first half, and when he did, I could see why taking jumpers is something he is loath to do. The jump shot looks somewhat unnatural, almost like he isn’t totally comfortable with how the shot is coming off of his hands.
This was taken to another level when he went to the free-throw line, a place where you can usually tell if a person with a below average jumper has the requisite skills to get better quickly. In the NC State game, I didn’t see a guy who felt confident in getting to the line, knowing he is going to cash in on the freebies with great regularity.
Now don’t let this come off as a “This guy will never be able to knock down jump shots”, but more as “this guy is going to have to put in some serious work in order to get his jumper to where it needs to be.” But as it stands right now, he has taken zero threes and only seven two-point jumpers (all according to Luke Winn of Sports Illustrated) and it is evident when he plays the game that he doesn’t trust his jumper. Even when Winn charted his pregame three point jumpers, Simmons only hit 5/23.
Good thing for Simmons, jump shots aren’t the only way to score, and the reason he is still averaging 16 points per game, including his four points against NC State, is because he has the athleticism to overwhelm people at the college level. He has the ability to break down a defense with his dribble and put a lot of stress on the defense in the paint with his ability to rise above the defense and finish. This is the ability that can translate early to the next level, if he so chooses to look to score.
Which brings us to our last point on Simmons’s scoring. As noted earlier, he seems much more in his element when looking to set his teammates up than looking to put in points. By no means is it the end of the world that a freshman doesn’t look to take over scoring-wise at ever turn, remember it took Anthony Davis and Andrew Wiggins a while to show assertiveness with scoring and even they didn’t exhibit that fully by the end of the year.
Simmons can look to score a little more than he did. At some points he seemed more than comfortable to drift among the edges and watch others take care of the scoring duties, but when you are the projected number 1 pick in the draft, you are going to have to work on becoming more assertive.