NBA 2021 - 2022 BENched Simmons

[Rhom]

For all the talk a couple weeks ago about Ben Simmons being on the move, I’m at least somewhat surprised we have not seen any action on that front.

[Maithanet]

55 minutes ago, Rhom said:

For all the talk a couple weeks ago about Ben Simmons being on the move, I’m at least somewhat surprised we have not seen any action on that front.

I'm really curious what sort of market there even is for him.  The playoffs were like a perfect showcase of Simmons limitations and why you'd be reluctant to rely on him, in spite of his obvious skills in other areas. 

Just for a thought exercise, is there any contender that would get better if they traded their second best player for Simmons?  LAL, BKN, LAC, GSW, MIL, DEN, UTA, and PHO all wouldn't.  Maybe Atlanta or Miami or NYK, but those are fringe contenders at best. 

And if that's true, is this a guy you even want to devote max money to (let alone trading away a bunch of assets for the privilege?)

[Mr. Chatywin et al.]

Portland becomes a fringe contender if you swapped out CJ for Simmons, but I can’t see the Sixers doing a deal with them that doesn’t send Dame to Philly.

[Maithanet]

2 minutes ago, Tywin et al. said:

Portland becomes a fringe contender if you swapped out CJ for Simmons, but I can’t see the Sixers doing a deal with them that doesn’t send Dame to Philly.

They get better, but that's leaning pretty hard on "fringe".  That team isn't a top 5 squad. 

[Mr. Chatywin et al.]

15 minutes ago, Maithanet said:

They get better, but that's leaning pretty hard on "fringe".  That team isn't a top 5 squad. 

Didn’t they make it to the conference Finals just like two years ago, while missing their third best player? I think Simmons would be a massive upgrade given how they need defensive help and another primary ball handler so Lillard can’t get trapped.

[Maithanet]

17 minutes ago, Tywin et al. said:

Didn’t they make it to the conference Finals just like two years ago, while missing their third best player? I think Simmons would be a massive upgrade given how they need defensive help and another primary ball handler so Lillard can’t get trapped.

But he also sucks as a shooter, which means they can trap Lillard with Simmons defender.  It is really hard to see how Simmons really changes the game for the Blazers, they're still not talented enough. 

I have my doubts that Phoenix is talented enough to win the West again in the next couple of years, and they are clearly ahead of a Lillard/Simmons Blazers squad. 

[Mr. Chatywin et al.]

35 minutes ago, Maithanet said:

But he also sucks as a shooter, which means they can trap Lillard with Simmons defender.  It is really hard to see how Simmons really changes the game for the Blazers, they're still not talented enough. 

I have my doubts that Phoenix is talented enough to win the West again in the next couple of years, and they are clearly ahead of a Lillard/Simmons Blazers squad. 

I think there's a lot they could do with that two man game, and unless I missed something I thought the rest of their roster was pretty solid, it's just that you can only go but so far when your two best players are small. They've hit their ceiling and adding Simmons would make them a good deal better imo. I also don't think there's that much separation at the top of the West right now, and adding Simmons plus another move or two could get them into that grouping even if they wouldn't be the favorite.

[Maithanet]

2 minutes ago, Tywin et al. said:

I think there's a lot they could do with that two man game, and unless I missed something I thought the rest of their roster was pretty solid, it's just that you can only go but so far when your two best players are small. They've hit their ceiling and adding Simmons would make them a good deal better imo. I also don't think there's that much separation at the top of the West right now, and adding Simmons plus another move or two could get them into that grouping even if they wouldn't be the favorite.

That's still not very convincing.  Yes, Simmons is a minor upgrade over CJ McCollum, who is himself like the 50th or so best player in the league.  With Simmons, the Blazers would go from ~ the 7th best team in the West to maybe the 5th best (even that feels optimistic IMO). 

The point is not that Simmons is terrible and doesn't deserve to be in the NBA.  It's that he's not good enough to be the second best player on a championship contender.  Which is pretty underwhelming for a 25 year old former #1 pick who's made 3 straight all-star teams. 

[Mr. Chatywin et al.]

26 minutes ago, Maithanet said:

That's still not very convincing.  Yes, Simmons is a minor upgrade over CJ McCollum, who is himself like the 50th or so best player in the league.  With Simmons, the Blazers would go from ~ the 7th best team in the West to maybe the 5th best (even that feels optimistic IMO). 

The point is not that Simmons is terrible and doesn't deserve to be in the NBA.  It's that he's not good enough to be the second best player on a championship contender.  Which is pretty underwhelming for a 25 year old former #1 pick who's made 3 straight all-star teams. 

Perhaps I’m just really high on Dame and think if paired with a legitimate all-star that could be enough to have a shot at the conference finals, and at that point you’re a contender. And like I said I think those two would really completement one another.

What are your feelings regarding the argument that Embiid kind of stunts Simmons’ ability to score, and that on a different team with a five out concept he could take a leap forward if he worked on his game and got his mind in a better place?

[Proudfeet]

6 hours ago, Maithanet said:

I'm really curious what sort of market there even is for him.  The playoffs were like a perfect showcase of Simmons limitations and why you'd be reluctant to rely on him, in spite of his obvious skills in other areas. 

Yeah, the logical conclusion is that Simmons tanked his value in the playoffs and nobody was willing to meet the Sixers' asking price which was probably much too high considering he was only made available because his value tanked.

Still, I'm quite high on Simmons, assuming he can get past his crisis of confidence. I don't think that he is as bad as he looked this year. He looked much better two years ago. 

As far as trading Simmons go and ignoring the Sixer's needs, I'd gladly trade Westbrook who is making $10m more, Kyrie because KD and Harden can each carry an offense by themselves, maybe Porzingis because he the opposite problems as Simmons with the same salary, maybe Murray and Klay if you think they can't recover from injuries and that's the whole list of players at that salary range ($30m and above). 

Also, I didn't think that this could happen, but Wiggins probably has more value than Simmons after their performances this season.

[Maithanet]

I think that the Lakers just about have the 2014 championship locked up. 

[briantw]

 

Presumably leaving time for him to back out and join the French national team if they beat Team USA for the gold.

[Mr. Chatywin et al.]

1 hour ago, briantw said:

 

Presumably leaving time for him to back out and join the French national team if they beat Team USA for the gold.

Let it go man. At the end of the day he made a business decision, one that we’d all make if it was related to our careers.

 

In other news, Kawhi is resigning with LAC which comes as no surprise given no one else can really sign him. If you ran LAC would you want to give him a long max deal? I’d be nervous about that.

[briantw]

41 minutes ago, Tywin et al. said:

Let it go man. At the end of the day he made a business decision, one that we’d all make if it was related to our careers.

It was a joke.  

[Mr. Chatywin et al.]

22 minutes ago, briantw said:

It was a joke.  

I know, but you've already made it 100 times before. 

[Mr. Chatywin et al.]

This is great:

 

[Proudfeet]

Hopefully this helps shooting fouls to be called more sensibly. I don't think we'll ever get consistency, but hopefully it reduces the frequency of players playing for the foul rather than the basket. Hopefully. I'm not too optimistic.

 

 

[Mr. Chatywin et al.]

Please let this kid become a star on the court, and I'm not saying that for selfish reasons:
 

 

[Maithanet]

Last year was noteworthy for how wide open it was.  Going into the year, there were maybe 10 teams that if you squint right, you could see potentially being champions.  That is way more than usual in this league.  And the Suns weren't even one of them!  That's how wide open things ended up being.

This year, not so much.  Last season's bloodbath of injuries will hold back Denver, LAC and GSW.  The Celtics have fallen apart and the Sixers look like they're on their way.  In the East, you have Brooklyn and Milwaukee and everyone else.  Maybe Miami could beat one of those teams, although it's really hard to imagine they could defeat both without a lot of injury help.  No one else really feels like a threat. 

The West has LAL, Phoenix and Utah.  Maybe GSW if Thompson is back looking like himself. 

This is more typical for the NBA, but it's still disappointing.  I'm worried that the Nets are going to run away with this.  I felt confident they would fall short last year (and I was right, barely).  But Mills is a huge addition for them, because he can eat up 30+ minutes a night at the guard positions, which means dramatically less wear on Irving and Harden.  The team is still reliant on their Big 3 to win, but if they're healthy it's hard to see anybody beating them in best-of-seven.  And when the NBA championship is just a question of health, that's kinda dull.  Oh well. 

[Proudfeet]

Last year exposed a lot of the flaws that were previously not that obvious, or thought to be manageable.

Portland's injury excuse for the bubble was voided when they fell only missing Collins despite getting an upgrade with Powell. Simons hasn't developed as well as expected, and maybe their run the year prior wasn't a fluke but it seems everyone else just got much better.

Dallas, well, Porzingis might not have been fully healthy, but he was healthy enough to disappoint.

Boston, I thought that they needed a center, but it turned out that he was already on their roster and Kemba's knee got busted.

Philly is just sad. I felt that they had and have the best matchup against the Nets but Simmons killed his stock and might have taken the team down with him.

Then there's the semi hopeful teams Denver, LAC, GSW which you covered. Murray and Kawhi are expected back earliest just before the playoffs. Klay hasn't played in two years.

I'm even less optimistic than you are, because I think that LAL is too old, Phoenix already lost and might not get the same year against better scouting and Utah feels like a bad matchup against the Nets, especially if Gobert still has zero moves with the ball. At this point we might as well hope Memphis has their three young players all have a breakout season.