A Contender Ought to Take A Flyer On Ben Simmons

With the 2024-25 season nearing its conclusion, it’s time to begin looking forward to the offseason. On this article collection, we are going to check out under-the-radar choices within the 2025 Free Company Pool. For the sake of simplicity, we’re going to focus totally on unrestricted free brokers.

Few gamers have skilled a fall from grace on par with the one Ben Simmons has skilled over the previous couple of years. Simply 4 years in the past, Simmons was being chosen to All-Star and All-Defensive groups and thought of an integral piece on a workforce that was one win away from the Japanese Convention Finals.

Then, accidents and an unwillingness to shoot the basketball caught as much as him, resulting in the previous first general choose accepting a contract buyout and signing with one other workforce for the minimal in simply his age-28 season.

Now, Simmons is an unrestricted free agent this offseason, and whereas it’s clear he’s not the highest 25 participant that he as soon as was, Simmons has proven that he can nonetheless contribute to successful on the proper value.

Ben Simmons Offers Groups Lineup Versatility

When he first arrived on the NBA scene, Simmons was considered as some extent guard due to his prodigious imaginative and prescient and superior ball dealing with talents. For the primary 4 years of his profession, Simmons by no means performed lower than 74% of his minutes at level guard and by no means logged a single minute within the frontcourt (per Basketball Reference).

Sadly, Simmons capturing woes (he’s solely taken 36 profession 3-pointers) and lack of ability to bend defenses persistently made it practically unimaginable to play him at lead guard and nonetheless area a sound offense.

The excellent news is that due to his dimension (6’10) and power, Simmons has been capable of transition to enjoying extra minutes at energy ahead/middle. This season, his three most frequent matchups included Giannis Antetokounmpo, Evan Mobley, and Pascal Siakam (per NBA.com).

The great thing about Simmons is that he has the power to battle with paint-centric gamers just like the troika above and the gracefulness to bop with smaller gamers. In accordance with BBall Index, Simmons’ efficiency final season positioned within the 96th percentile in Defensive Positional Versatility.

Simmons provides groups who tout a extra conventional middle (Brook Lopez, Nikola Jokic, Ivica Zubac, and so on.) a special pitch due to his skill to seamlessly toggle between guarding facilities, forwards, and guards. For those who’re a kind of groups that rosters a stone-footed beginning middle and desires a lineup that may swap all the things, you possibly can flip to Simmons as your backup 5 in a small-ball lineup.

Simmons Can Do Sufficient On Offense To Get By As A Heart

Simmons’ offensive foibles killed his groups when he was enjoying level guard, however when he’s at middle, they’re far much less damaging. Whereas enjoying the 5, Simmons doesn’t want to fret about perimeter capturing or on-ball creation. He simply must display, minimize, make fast reads as a passer (in brief rolls or when he’s getting used as a playmaking hub), and end across the rim.

Because the participant card above exhibits, Simmons had an amazing season as a screener – putting within the 92nd percentile in screening expertise (the identical is true together with his chopping). His distribution abilities additionally stay as sharp as ever, as Simmons positioned within the one hundredth percentile in Ben Taylor’s Passer Score metric.

Ending was a wrestle for him final season (thirty first percentile rim accuracy), which is a giant cause why head coach Tyronn Lue ultimately phased him out of the rotation within the Los Angeles Clippers’ first spherical collection in opposition to the Denver Nuggets. Nonetheless, there may be hope that this was only a fluke, as Simmons has positioned within the 67th percentile or increased in rim ending in 5 of his six different NBA seasons.

On the finish of the day, Simmons continues to be a under common offensive participant, even when he’s enjoying middle. However his passing, screening, chopping, and ending are adequate to maintain him on the ground and permit his employer to reap the advantages of his all-inclusive defensive package deal.

As somebody who will doubtless signal for the veteran minimal once more this offseason (estimated to be 3.1 million, primarily based on Simmons’ expertise), Simmons provides an amazing choice for playoff groups wanting so as to add a flexible chess piece to their bench rotation at an inexpensive price.

Did you take pleasure in this text? In that case, you should definitely take a look at the opposite installments on this collection of Amir Coffey, Landry Shamet, Duncan Robinson, and Jae’Sean Tate.