Is Ben Simmons simply not talented enough to warrant the hype he's received?

[socal74]

"Underwhelming"
All-Star x3
All-NBA 3rd Team
All-Defensive 1st Team x2
DPOY Runner-up
Steals Champ
Career averages = 14.9 points, 7.9 rebounds, 7.6 assists
Career Playoff averages = 13.9 points, 8.1 rebounds, 7.5 assists

Seems like you missed the point. He is very good at a lot of things, but the things he is very bad at take away from his overall impact. You can be really good at some things, win awards and lead the league in categories, while still having underwhelming impact if you are really bad at other things on the court.

I think he's only bad at ONE thing - shooting.
Not saying he's great at everything else, but he's only "bad" at one thing.
I think his rebounding, defense and passing more than makes up for the shooting....

Unfortunately, it does not. He's so bad at shooting that the team he is on is always playing 4 on 5 on the offensive side. All the other stuff he brings is negated because of that. He needs an all time shooting teammates like the warriors to erase his offensive deficiencies but they already have a better version in Draymond so....

[dc]

Simmons is plenty talented and was an all-star pretty early on in his career. He has elite level defense, good rebounding and excellent playmaking.

He simply has a historic level of non-shooting ability. Nobody who has handled the ball as much as he has was ever this poor of a shooter. Everyone assumed that he'd improve a little bit.....like at least to Draymond shooting levels or maybe a bit better. Instead he's just historically bad shooting the ball and it's compounded by even being afraid to go to the FT line.

[cam24thomas]

Seems like you missed the point. He is very good at a lot of things, but the things he is very bad at take away from his overall impact. You can be really good at some things, win awards and lead the league in categories, while still having underwhelming impact if you are really bad at other things on the court.

I think he's only bad at ONE thing - shooting.
Not saying he's great at everything else, but he's only "bad" at one thing.
I think his rebounding, defense and passing more than makes up for the shooting....

Unfortunately, it does not. He's so bad at shooting that the team he is on is always playing 4 on 5 on the offensive side. All the other stuff he brings is negated because of that. He needs an all time shooting teammates like the warriors to erase his offensive deficiencies but they already have a better version in Draymond so....

But the Nets won 12 in a row, and the Sixers finished FIRST in the East in 2020-21....

[sfernald]

Have you even watched the games? He's very important to that Nets team, now especially. He's the engine that makes it go. He's the point guard who sets up the play every time down the court. He usually sets the pick for the guy who shoots or he gets the rebound when they miss. He's sort of a combo of a Magic type player and a Green dirty work type player. When he's on he's a force to reckon with. He just needs to get back to 100%. That might take him the whole year. But even so, 100% after all these trades, he will still be the starting point guard for the Nets and the engine that makes the Nets machine run.

[dautjazz]

"Underwhelming"
All-Star x3
All-NBA 3rd Team
All-Defensive 1st Team x2
DPOY Runner-up
Steals Champ
Career averages = 14.9 points, 7.9 rebounds, 7.6 assists
Career Playoff averages = 13.9 points, 8.1 rebounds, 7.5 assists

What is he doing this year? he's not even a top 5 player on his own team. Dude is utter trash and his career is done. Hasn't played a decent game in over two years.

He's not supposed to be good this year, he's had back and knee problems, plus he's restricted by playing with 2 superstars.... including ball-dominant Kyrie.

Lmao you just have a laundry list of excuses for Simmons. Haven't you been telling us that he's been playing great this year, but now he's not?

[cam24thomas]

What is he doing this year? he's not even a top 5 player on his own team. Dude is utter trash and his career is done. Hasn't played a decent game in over two years.

He's not supposed to be good this year, he's had back and knee problems, plus he's restricted by playing with 2 superstars.... including ball-dominant Kyrie.

Lmao you just have a laundry list of excuses for Simmons. Haven't you been telling us that he's been playing great this year, but now he's not?

I didn't say he's "not playing great", I said "He's not supposed to be good this year".
If you think he's not playing great, I'm saying the reasons why.

[mcfly1204]

He's not supposed to be good this year, he's had back and knee problems, plus he's restricted by playing with 2 superstars.... including ball-dominant Kyrie.

Lmao you just have a laundry list of excuses for Simmons. Haven't you been telling us that he's been playing great this year, but now he's not?

I didn't say he's "not playing great", I said "He's not supposed to be good this year".
If you think he's not playing great, I'm saying the reasons why.

Those are not reasons, they are excuses. If Simmons was as dynamic as you claim, he could find a way to be a good player on any team.

[GreatWhiteStiff]

What is he doing this year? he's not even a top 5 player on his own team. Dude is utter trash and his career is done. Hasn't played a decent game in over two years.

He's not supposed to be good this year, he's had back and knee problems, plus he's restricted by playing with 2 superstars.... including ball-dominant Kyrie.

Lmao you just have a laundry list of excuses for Simmons. Haven't you been telling us that he's been playing great this year, but now he's not?

Ben10Simmons no longer has the excuse that since he's playing with Durant and Irving, Simmons isn't needed to score the basketball at all anymore. The rest of the season for the nets, Simmons, and Ben10Simmons should be interesting in that respect.

[monopoman]

Simmons would have been a higher regarded player in the 80s or 90s, there a guy having a 3 point shot wasn't really as needed.

Unfortunately for him he was born in the wrong era, I have a no clue why the **** he can't work on his shortcomings though. There have been plenty of other guys out there that have developed a 3 point shot over their career.

[Asianiac_24]

He was basically Andre Iguodala already straight out of the draft. The fact that he hasn't improved at all since his rookie year, and in fact has been regressing to now a bench player, says all about who he is. A lazy diva with top 0.00001% natural god given abilities who just plays basketball to live a celebrity lifestyle.

[Tottery]

"Underwhelming"
All-Star x3
All-NBA 3rd Team
All-Defensive 1st Team x2
DPOY Runner-up
Steals Champ
Career averages = 14.9 points, 7.9 rebounds, 7.6 assists
Career Playoff averages = 13.9 points, 8.1 rebounds, 7.5 assists

Seems like you missed the point. He is very good at a lot of things, but the things he is very bad at take away from his overall impact. You can be really good at some things, win awards and lead the league in categories, while still having underwhelming impact if you are really bad at other things on the court.

I think he's only bad at ONE thing - shooting.
Not saying he's great at everything else, but he's only "bad" at one thing.
I think his rebounding, defense and passing more than makes up for the shooting....

It does not make up for it. Very few players can get away with not scoring much because they were so talented in other areas. Rodman is a good example of this. Lockdown defense along with 15-20+ boards a night. If simmons was doing that, he wouldn't be hated on as much.

He's not Rodman though. He needs to score more.

[Got Nuffin]

Ben Simmons is the new Andrea Bargnani. If not for those little wee aspects of basketball called rebounding and team defence, Bargs could have been a star in the league

However he was so extremely beyond poor in those categories that it never mattered how talented he was in other areas. Both refused to do these important basketball things to the point of trolling.

Also, both these guys would much rather be fishing or playing other sports rather than basketball if only they weren't so tall.

Well, they both made a whole lotta money and frustrated a whole lotta fans in their careers. Good on them for living great lives I guess.

[Ito]

Hes what people had forgotten or don't use like that anymore to describe players.. he's a system player.. simply got to shine a lil because his team relied on him and maybe he was comfortable because they didn't have much of anything else at the time but yeah.. he's a scrub

[GregOden]

He's a tall PG who can't shoot and he has an unimpressive wingspan so he isn't particularly impactful as a PF/C. Compound that with his fear of getting fouled because of his poor FT shooting and you have a guy who isn't adding much to the bottom line to a winning team.

[-Profanity-]

Not sure why this thread is turning into "Simmons can't shoot" when it should be "Simmons still seems to have the yips". We already knew he couldn't shoot in Philly but he could at least make a layup, and combined with his other skills was still a valuable player - now it's like he refuses to score in general.

[payton2kemp]

He's not supposed to be good this year, he's had back and knee problems, plus he's restricted by playing with 2 superstars.... including ball-dominant Kyrie.

Lmao you just have a laundry list of excuses for Simmons. Haven't you been telling us that he's been playing great this year, but now he's not?

Ben10Simmons no longer has the excuse that since he's playing with Durant and Irving, Simmons isn't needed to score the basketball at all anymore. The rest of the season for the nets, Simmons, and Ben10Simmons should be interesting in that respect.

lol

Bridges, Cam T, Cam J, Dinwiddie, Finny, Claxton all have more value than Simmons this year. I actually had faith and thought he'd do something this year, but he's cooked its over. He's like MCW, thought he'd be something after his rookie year but ended up as nothing.

[NO-KG-AI]

His offensive talent, ball handling, and passing are all overrated. Not having a jump shot didn’t help, but it wasn’t rhe major problem.

[Pachinko_]

To be fair I've only been following the NBA closely for about a decade, but during that time it feels to me that having a top pick turn to some form or crap/semi crap happens more often than not. Teams and fans should be prepared for it and expect less.
Simmons turned out average.

[dc]

Simmons would have been a higher regarded player in the 80s or 90s, there a guy having a 3 point shot wasn't really as needed.

Unfortunately for him he was born in the wrong era, I have a no clue why the **** he can't work on his shortcomings though. There have been plenty of other guys out there that have developed a 3 point shot over their career.

It's not his lack of a 3 that's the problem. It's lack of anything that resembles a jump shot. Yeah, when you were forced by rule to guard every player on the floor and couldn't play any kind of zone at all in the old NBA, it would be less of an issue.

Still, as I've said a million times, his level of non-shooting for a guy who handles the ball as much as he does (or even half as much) is simply historic. There's literally no comparison. There have been horrific guys like Andris Biedrins, but at least that guy was a full time center.

And now he's compounded his non-shooting in recent years by being afraid of going to the FT line. Previously, he could at least kind of "get by" as a 60% FT shooter, but now he's basically allergic of going to the line.

[Ayt]

Go back to his rookie season. Philly closed out the season 16-0 with Simmons shining. Embiid went down with 8 games remaining and they still went 8-0 after that with Simmons leading the way averaging 15.6/9.5/9.3 with 2.0 steals and 1.1 blocks and a TS% of .606. Then, in the 1st round (with Embiid missing the first two games), he averaged 18.2/10.6/9.0 with 2.4 steals and 0.6 blocks. He couldn't even shoot outside of the paint but was still dominant on both ends of the court and on the break. His potential was immense. He looked like a potential Magic-like future superstar at that point.

It didn't work out that way, but it isn't hard to see why people were so high on him. He was already outstanding defensively even as a rookie and showed huge potential offensively even with only minor improvements over what he showed as a rookie. Instead, he became the scared husk that we see now.