ryan in Maine wrote:DusterBuster wrote:ryan in Maine wrote:Simons isn't Shane Battier and nobody's happy about it.
Shane Battier?… Imma need half a cup of context.
Simons is a rhythm scorer. Once he got to Boston, Mazzulla told him right off the bat that he's going to have to come off the bench and focus on his defense. Probably the first time in his career he's heard it lol and there's some merit to it. We do have a certain brand as a top defense. That's not Simon's main issue though. Pritchard was promoted to starter. That put Simons in a position where he was expected to get buckets off the bench on demand, and as a rhythm scorer, that's not easy. Especially when you're expected to cut to the wing/corner and play off ball for the first time in your career. He's had to make a major adjustment as a scorer while learning Celtics defense and finding his way around off ball. It's a big ask for a guy that might've been brought in for money reasons alone. We're kinda nerfing his career imo.
Based on what I've read on the board, it sounds like they want Simons to play the Shane Battier role and play it passably. A true reinvention of himself as a player at 26 years old. And that seems to be Mazzulla's expectation as well. It's even more complicated for Mazz though. So if Simons was brought in for largely money reasons, if Simons isn't going to be a primary offensive weapon for us, if Simons can't play Battier lite playing solid d and maximizing his minutes, well then you have to look at his minutes as interfering with our young bucks. (Not to mention Pritchard and White kicked the rust off and have been much more inspiring in their minutes than earlier in the season).
Minott, Walsh, and Hugo are all meeting or exceeding my expectations. There's no way I want to take minutes from them in a season that JT is out injured and Simons wasn't a planned pregnancy (figuratively speaking). It is of the utmost importance that we develop them so they're ready to compete for a title next season. We're not getting our money's worth from Simons unless we make him 1B. Or at least 1A on the second unit lol and we haven't even given him the key to that obvious role. Otherwise, even a big Simons fan such as myself looks at Minott, Walsh, and Hugo and thinks they're scoring well and can already play defense at a higher level than Simons. And they're all capable of playing with a Battier like all around performance. More dangerous off ball.
Like, to sum it up, it took Simons 12 games to set a franchise scoring record. He's got the record for points off the bench in one half with 25. He got the record in a revenge win against the Magic. But you know what's funny? He was benched the entire second half lol. We've only let him play that freely in a few games. And never a full game lol. It's unheard of to bench a player in that situation. There's a mild sense of exclusion. It just leaves me scratching my head.
The young bucks can't score like Simons, but they can score the way Mazzulla wants them to in our system, they can do it as well or better than Simons, and they can do it while guarding multiple positions.
This is a fantastic breakdown. I think your point about Simons as a rhythm scorer is so on point. That tho is always the problem with his game. Whether start or off the bench, if he can't get that rhythm going, he's kinda useless on the floor. He doesn't do anything else good enough to justify staying on the court.
The Simons experience the Celtics are seeing is what he was in Portland. I think him learning under Dame really was a detriment to his game because he does share some skillsets with Lillard, but he never had the PnR game and playmaking Dame did. Dame could will himself into a rhythm in a way Simons can't. He's either got it on a night or not. That's just a hard dude to play on a team consistently. If he's starting, there's nights he's just gonna give you next to nothing or be hurting your team because he's trying to start an engine that's just not gonna start. If he's off the bench, he's not gonna play enough to get good stats because a coach will just pull him within a few min after they see it's not there.
