The Ben Simmons Megathread - Part III

[TheBallsDeeper]

You can't master something if you don't practice ...

The only thing I can say about this situation

Actually, Simmons has practiced PLENTY. I'm pretty sure he's devoted entire offseasons to practicing his shot. That's not his problem. His problem is that he won't even attempt anything during a game.

No, his problem is that he is shooting with the wrong hand. He can hardly make a layup with his left, he's not going to start hitting threes with it at better than 10%.

He is terrible in practice, and he knows it. For every video that showed him draining a 3 over summer, there were ten of him in the background of other players highlight videos missing shot after shot. Ben knows that him taking shots is almost a guaranteed turn over, Brown knows the same, that's why he is not pushed to shoot.

Simmon's ego is stopping him from shooting correctly, and Brown is more concerned with the players liking him than making the hard calls.

Simmons should be shut down for three months. Lock him in the Gym with a real shooting coach (not a family member), and tell him that if he doesn't shoot with his right he is not playing for the rest of his contract. No trade, just inactive until he drops the act.

[Don]

Wow. That's gonna happen... Again, let's lock him down for 3 months so that Adam Silver and fans at games can be pissed. Yup..

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[76ciology]

Yeah. Prime rondo needs 2-3 top tier allstars to win. So does Ben.

Too bad. What we need is a Paul Pierce.

Or a Ray Allen?

Or a Jimmy Butler? Oh, wait...

Smh.. we got Korkmaz. The guy is like a taller version of steph curry. Have you seen his behind the back passes?

If this is lakers nation, they’d be losing their mind

[MVP1992]

One day Ben, one day. You can do it.

Watch on YouTube

[76ciology]

One day Ben, one day. You can do it.

Watch on YouTube

[Zumramania]

He is terrible in practice, and he knows it. For every video that showed him draining a 3 over summer, there were ten of him in the background of other players highlight videos missing shot after shot. Ben knows that him taking shots is almost a guaranteed turn over, Brown knows the same, that's why he is not pushed to shoot.

Simmon's ego is stopping him from shooting correctly, and Brown is more concerned with the players liking him than making the hard calls.

Simmons should be shut down for three months. Lock him in the Gym with a real shooting coach (not a family member), and tell him that if he doesn't shoot with his right he is not playing for the rest of his contract. No trade, just inactive until he drops the act.

Bolded is true I'm afraid, there are literally guys who I play pickup games with who shoot better than what we saw from Ben. This is why I'm really skeptical if he can become an NBA level 3pt shooter, it will take many years at best or maybe he should really change the shooting hand...

[eagereyez]

The rationale of the "experts" is that you don't need to shoot in games, you get better just practicing jump shots. Then after 5 or 6 years, you play a game and then bam, start draining jumpers, no need to shoot in 6 years before that.

If you want Simmons to shoot in game to get better, then I'm not opposed to that. I'm just wondering if people think Simmons shooting 3s will actually help the the team win games, because it won't.

If Simmons was serious about becoming a better shooter than he should have switched shooting hands his injured rookie year. He had >12 months to do nothing but practice. But nope, he entered the league shooting with the same hand and somehow shot worse from the FT line than he did in college. At this point you have to be a pretty ardent Simmons fan to still have hope of him becoming a legitimate scoring threat outside 6 ft.

[Bum Adebayo]

The rationale of the "experts" is that you don't need to shoot in games, you get better just practicing jump shots. Then after 5 or 6 years, you play a game and then bam, start draining jumpers, no need to shoot in 6 years before that.

If you want Simmons to shoot in game to get better, then I'm not opposed to that. I'm just wondering if people think Simmons shooting 3s will actually help the the team win games, because it won't.

If Simmons was serious about becoming a better shooter than he should have switched shooting hands his injured rookie year. He had >12 months to do nothing but practice. But nope, he entered the league shooting with the same hand and somehow shot worse from the FT line than he did in college. At this point you have to be a pretty ardent Simmons fan to still have hope of him becoming a legitimate scoring threat outside 6 ft.

It will help to win a championship in the future, not now. That's the whole point of all this. Nobody expects Simmons to even shoot 30% from three, he just has to get used to it. You need in-game reps, not only shooting in an empty gym.
As currently constructed, there is no way in hell we are winning a championship, so trying to improve our player with the highest upside makes sense.

[eagereyez]

The rationale of the "experts" is that you don't need to shoot in games, you get better just practicing jump shots. Then after 5 or 6 years, you play a game and then bam, start draining jumpers, no need to shoot in 6 years before that.

If you want Simmons to shoot in game to get better, then I'm not opposed to that. I'm just wondering if people think Simmons shooting 3s will actually help the the team win games, because it won't.

If Simmons was serious about becoming a better shooter than he should have switched shooting hands his injured rookie year. He had >12 months to do nothing but practice. But nope, he entered the league shooting with the same hand and somehow shot worse from the FT line than he did in college. At this point you have to be a pretty ardent Simmons fan to still have hope of him becoming a legitimate scoring threat outside 6 ft.

It will help to win a championship in the future, not now. That's the whole point of all this. Nobody expects Simmons to even shoot 30% from three, he just has to get used to it. You need in-game reps, not only shooting in an empty gym.
As currently constructed, there is no way in hell we are winning a championship, so trying to improve our player with the highest upside makes sense.

So let me ask you a question - do you believe that guys like Jahlil Okafor, Clint Capela, DeAndre Jordan, Andre Drummond, and Montrezl Harrell can improve their shooting if they took a few 3s every game? If they took two 3s a game, that would total 164 shots over the course of the entire regular season. How many reps do guys usually put in before they improve - 10,000, 25,000, 100,000? Taking ~160 3s over the course of a regular season will not help anyone improve. All it will do is show everyone how awful they are at shooting. Real improvement happens in the gym after countless reps. The good that would come from Simmons shooting 3s in game is that we'd finally know just how bad he is at it. I'm guessing he'd average around 20%, at which point fans would beg him to stop shooting.

[El Process]

I imagine most of us on this board would trade Ben for Luca now days.... Imagine Luca and Embiid together....

Oh well, stuck with him. We better add another dymanic scorer at some point.

[DaSixers]

um, it isnt even a discussion.... Doncic is a WAY.. and I mean, WAY better player than ben simmons. It is absolutely insane that simmons will soon be making max money

[Bum Adebayo]

I imagine most of us on this board would trade Ben for Luca now days.... Imagine Luca and Embiid together....

Oh well, stuck with him. We better add another dymanic scorer at some point.

Lloydfree wouldn't I think.

[Bum Adebayo]

If you want Simmons to shoot in game to get better, then I'm not opposed to that. I'm just wondering if people think Simmons shooting 3s will actually help the the team win games, because it won't.

If Simmons was serious about becoming a better shooter than he should have switched shooting hands his injured rookie year. He had >12 months to do nothing but practice. But nope, he entered the league shooting with the same hand and somehow shot worse from the FT line than he did in college. At this point you have to be a pretty ardent Simmons fan to still have hope of him becoming a legitimate scoring threat outside 6 ft.

It will help to win a championship in the future, not now. That's the whole point of all this. Nobody expects Simmons to even shoot 30% from three, he just has to get used to it. You need in-game reps, not only shooting in an empty gym.
As currently constructed, there is no way in hell we are winning a championship, so trying to improve our player with the highest upside makes sense.

So let me ask you a question - do you believe that guys like Jahlil Okafor, Clint Capela, DeAndre Jordan, Andre Drummond, and Montrezl Harrell can improve their shooting if they took a few 3s every game? If they took two 3s a game, that would total 164 shots over the course of the entire regular season. How many reps do guys usually put in before they improve - 10,000, 25,000, 100,000? Taking ~160 3s over the course of a regular season will not help anyone improve. All it will do is show everyone how awful they are at shooting. Real improvement happens in the gym after countless reps. The good that would come from Simmons shooting 3s in game is that we'd finally know just how bad he is at it. I'm guessing he'd average around 20%, at which point fans would beg him to stop shooting.

Of course it would help, how much depends on talent of course, there are things like touch or stiffness that limit your potential, but there is always room for improvement. In the gym you can improve, but in the gym + in-game you would improve more, it is easy to see. They are not equal shots, in-game there is more pressure and you are not alone. The experience you get shooting in-game is way higher than shooting in an empty gym.

[smittybanton]

If you want Simmons to shoot in game to get better, then I'm not opposed to that. I'm just wondering if people think Simmons shooting 3s will actually help the the team win games, because it won't.

If Simmons was serious about becoming a better shooter than he should have switched shooting hands his injured rookie year. He had >12 months to do nothing but practice. But nope, he entered the league shooting with the same hand and somehow shot worse from the FT line than he did in college. At this point you have to be a pretty ardent Simmons fan to still have hope of him becoming a legitimate scoring threat outside 6 ft.

It will help to win a championship in the future, not now. That's the whole point of all this. Nobody expects Simmons to even shoot 30% from three, he just has to get used to it. You need in-game reps, not only shooting in an empty gym.
As currently constructed, there is no way in hell we are winning a championship, so trying to improve our player with the highest upside makes sense.

So let me ask you a question - do you believe that guys like Jahlil Okafor, Clint Capela, DeAndre Jordan, Andre Drummond, and Montrezl Harrell can improve their shooting if they took a few 3s every game? If they took two 3s a game, that would total 164 shots over the course of the entire regular season. How many reps do guys usually put in before they improve - 10,000, 25,000, 100,000? Taking ~160 3s over the course of a regular season will not help anyone improve. All it will do is show everyone how awful they are at shooting. Real improvement happens in the gym after countless reps. The good that would come from Simmons shooting 3s in game is that we'd finally know just how bad he is at it. I'm guessing he'd average around 20%, at which point fans would beg him to stop shooting.

a. i think this is correct. there's a meme out there with giannis bricking threes and ben looking on with horror and fans screaming "shoot it"!

b. ben has improved, just not fast enough for fans. he's now fairly confident when he goes to the free throw line nowadays--even if the numbers arent off the cahrts. brett can now post him up on little guys because he's no longer scared to go the stripe. somebody tried the hackaben, he shut the down with the quickness. even if marginal it is meaningful considering where we are at this point.

c. i'll bet he starts shooting mid range once but only if he's regularly banging 75% from the free throw line.

d. please, please, please everybody check out blake griffin's shooting trajectory. the analogies between ben and blake are several. it very well could take years for ben to shoot threes. i got time.

e. ben needs to dribble better with his right hand before he switches over to shooting with it. take a drink every time ben dribbles twice with his right hand in halfcourt, you'll be safe to drive home. he's getting better at that too, though.

$.02

[eagereyez]

It will help to win a championship in the future, not now. That's the whole point of all this. Nobody expects Simmons to even shoot 30% from three, he just has to get used to it. You need in-game reps, not only shooting in an empty gym.
As currently constructed, there is no way in hell we are winning a championship, so trying to improve our player with the highest upside makes sense.

So let me ask you a question - do you believe that guys like Jahlil Okafor, Clint Capela, DeAndre Jordan, Andre Drummond, and Montrezl Harrell can improve their shooting if they took a few 3s every game? If they took two 3s a game, that would total 164 shots over the course of the entire regular season. How many reps do guys usually put in before they improve - 10,000, 25,000, 100,000? Taking ~160 3s over the course of a regular season will not help anyone improve. All it will do is show everyone how awful they are at shooting. Real improvement happens in the gym after countless reps. The good that would come from Simmons shooting 3s in game is that we'd finally know just how bad he is at it. I'm guessing he'd average around 20%, at which point fans would beg him to stop shooting.

Of course it would help, how much depends on talent of course, there are things like touch or stiffness that limit your potential, but there is always room for improvement. In the gym you can improve, but in the gym + in-game you would improve more, it is easy to see. They are not equal shots, in-game there is more pressure and you are not alone. The experience you get shooting in-game is way higher than shooting in an empty gym.

You will never shoot better in games than you do in practice. There are a lot of stressors in games that limit your performance - anxiety, fatigue, distractions, and opposing defenses when it's not a FT. So guys like Hield who shoot 85/100 from 3 in practice (like he did for Boston in his pre-draft workout) will shoot around half that in game (he shot 39% his rookie year). And that translation from practice to game situations gets better with more in game experience, but that's an issue of translation rather than an issue of improvement. For example, Dwight averaged 80% from the line in practice and 49% in game for the Lakers. His issue is an issue of translation, not improvement. Shaq had the same issue. So getting back to Simmons - if he looks terrible in practice (which he does) then he will look even worse in game. And shooting more in game will not help him improve; it will help with translation. Real improvement happens through thousands of hours of practice in the gym.

[Bum Adebayo]

So let me ask you a question - do you believe that guys like Jahlil Okafor, Clint Capela, DeAndre Jordan, Andre Drummond, and Montrezl Harrell can improve their shooting if they took a few 3s every game? If they took two 3s a game, that would total 164 shots over the course of the entire regular season. How many reps do guys usually put in before they improve - 10,000, 25,000, 100,000? Taking ~160 3s over the course of a regular season will not help anyone improve. All it will do is show everyone how awful they are at shooting. Real improvement happens in the gym after countless reps. The good that would come from Simmons shooting 3s in game is that we'd finally know just how bad he is at it. I'm guessing he'd average around 20%, at which point fans would beg him to stop shooting.

Of course it would help, how much depends on talent of course, there are things like touch or stiffness that limit your potential, but there is always room for improvement. In the gym you can improve, but in the gym + in-game you would improve more, it is easy to see. They are not equal shots, in-game there is more pressure and you are not alone. The experience you get shooting in-game is way higher than shooting in an empty gym.

You will never shoot better in games than you do in practice. There are a lot of stressors in games that limit your performance - anxiety, fatigue, distractions, and opposing defenses when it's not a FT. So guys like Hield who shoot 85/100 from 3 in practice (like he did for Boston in his pre-draft workout) will shoot around half that in game (he shot 39% his rookie year). And that translation from practice to game situations gets better with more in game experience, but that's an issue of translation rather than an issue of improvement. For example, Dwight averaged 80% from the line in practice and 49% in game for the Lakers. His issue is an issue of translation, not improvement. Shaq had the same issue. So getting back to Simmons - if he looks terrible in practice (which he does) then he will look even worse in game. And shooting more in game will not help him improve; it will help with translation. Real improvement happens through thousands of hours of practice in the gym.

Improvement happens with hours of shooting both in the gym and in-game.

[moistie]

https://youtu.be/j5YHDeu4akk

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[51X3RF4N]

I think Brett reads my posts...

I'm starting to think the bigger problem is not that he is unwilling to shoot an open 3, but rather 2 fold:

1. He cannot actually recognize when he is open because his focus out there is to initiate the offensive play being called and find his teammates open then get them the ball in a position to score. Therefore, his eyes are not looking at his own defender and he has trouble realizing that he is actually wide open himself and should just step into a 3 in rhythm. Miss or make, I'll take that possession 2 or 3 times per game to keep the defense honest, and chances are he is talented enough for it to go in a few times.

2. He is too cocky with thinking he can get to the rim or into the paint any time he wants, which generates open looks for his teammates or easier buckets for himself by throwing up a layup.

So in my opinion this is partially on Ben for not being the alpha scorer mentality, rather he has the opposite wanting to get his teammates into the flow and hitting shots. He's not wrong in this regard. The rest of the game will be much easier if all his teammates have gotten hot and taken a number of open shots. You saw that last night when he wasn't playing. Sixers didn't get a lot of open looks, and they struggled because of it.

But also, this is partially on the coaching staff for not properly simulating these situations in practice, and then pointing it out real time to Ben, and teaching him that he cannot simply drive and kick or drive and layup every time out there. It's on the coaches for not CALLING A PLAY WHERE BEN WALKS UP AND SHOOTS A 3. I mean, if Ben truly is just trying to "run the offense", then I'm putting in a play where everyone else spreads the floor, 4 corners style. And Ben brings up the ball. 1 of 2 things can happen. Either the defender is sagging off and the play calls for Ben to shoot the 3, or his man is up on him and he drives past them.

But, if he doesn't stick to the script, you bench him at that point. If he tries to drive when his defender is sitting on the foul line, it's going to go poorly for him, and then Brett can say in the film room., "hey what were you seeing on this one? Clearly he was sagging. Next time you don't follow the play call, you're going to sit."

I think a big part of this is Brett's stubbornness and wanting his idea of Ben playing PG to work out. He's unwilling to make changes when its obvious and even he has said, Ben needs to shoot 3s. But yet when it hasn't happened, you don't make adjustments?

I would tell Ben, "I'm calling your number 3 times per game going forward. You will catch and shoot a corner 3, you will step into a top of the key 3, and you will come off a pick with 1 dribble and step into a slightly off center top of the key 3. I don't care if you make or miss the shots. We won't win or lose the game because of 3 missed shots. If you refuse to take the shots when I call the plays, you will be benched."

End of rant.

[mithrandir17]

100% Three Point Shooter!

[kriss73]

Kendall Jenner gone and Ben is starting shoot threes.

Coincidences?