Ben Simmons, The 76ers, and the Potential Harm of Position-Labels

[TheHartBreakKid]

Firstly, this thread isn't meant to trash Sixers and/or Simmons, and I hope it leads to some productive discussion.

Like many others, I believe the NBA has been transitioning to a position-less league, and position labels are becoming more and more meaningless. However, I do wonder if the position labels could still be affecting how team's are approaching their roster building, whether consciously or subconsciously.

As an example, Let's just assume that Simmons was labeled a forward from the start of his career, and revisit some things that could have went differently from 2016 to the 2019 offseason.


Quick Note:
I didn't want to fully ignore the potential effect that position labels can have on player development. A PG being associated as the lead ball handler, in theory, could have contributed to Simmons' development from the very start. Obviously the player and his team deserves the blame for poor development, regardless of the label. But let's ignore that for this thread and pretend the same exact Simmons came in to the league and developed in the same way

So let's begin:

2016-17-Simmons still is out for the year. The first decision that might have gone differently would happen at the deadline with the Noel. Would Noel be traded without any guards incoming if Simmons was considered a front court player?
Possibly...but it's too early in the process and Noel had to moved either way, so let's move on to the next season.

2017-18- Sixers still trade up for Fultz. If they were so high on Fultz with Guard Simmons, they surely would do the same with Forward Simmons. In the the new timeline, Simmons would still be the de facto PG, playing the same exact role as he did on offense, as Fultz would still have his injury issues etc.

2018-19-The Sixers trade Mikal Bridges for Z.Smith and move down in the draft. Smith was another guard, so we could assume they simply thought it was a good value trade and were high on Smith. Do they pass on SGA though if they considered Simmons a forward, for a less ready product like Smith? But let's just say it was an asset management move, and that they were high on Smith (or low on SGA).

Sixers then trade for Jimmy Butler, something that they still obviously do.

Now, this is where things become interesting. In real-life, the Sixers next move on from Fultz and trade for Harris in the same deadline. With a loaded FC with Forward Simmons, do the 76ers still trade for Harris and head into a playoff run without any traditional point guards on the roster and minimal guard depth? I think here is the first instance that a case could be made for things going differently. But let's say the same still happens and move on to the next season.

2019 offseason- Jimmy still decides to leave, and the Sixers still do the S&T.
We now reach the most questionable move in the Forward Simmons scenario, which is Al the Horford signing. I know the move was questionable and had a lot of critics in real life regardless even with Guard Simmons. But that level of money and commitment, to a 4th front court player becomes way more questionable now.


Now I know what some might be thinking:

Maybe the 76ers never cared about the position label, and were actually operating in a purely position-less way from the start.

That's very likely, and 76ers seem to be a very forward thinking organization. My point isn't necessarily that the 76ers would have made different moves if Simmons had a different position label. Even with "Forward Simmons", it's possible that things could have gone exactly the same way.

I'm also trying to avoid revisionist history, and not ignore the butterfly effect. That's why I looked at each move at the specific time it was made. I'm also not trying to downplay the other factors that went into this, including questionable decision making from the FO, back luck, and poor development by Simmons. All those things had a clear contribution to the downfall, regardless of what position Simmons is labeled or how the Sixers approached their decision making.

Lastly, I'm not saying that the Sixers wouldn't have eventually figured it out with this core if Simmons didn't quit on the team regardless of position-label.


My main point is that a lot of those moves become more questionable at the time they were made, if Simmons was labeled differently, or if labels didn't exist in the first place.

I'm curious to hear your thoughts;


Do you think position labels can have a negative effect on roster building? If so, do you think played a negative part for the Simmons/Sixers during his time there?

[JayMKE]

I don’t think this hurt Simmons, you’d think bigs that play small would more expanded offensive game but Simmons has showed pretty much no interest in developing his game offensively. I think he’s just a very immature and deeply flawed player,

[Sixersftw]

The flawed roster construction had nothing to do with the position label placed on Simmons. Of course some roster moves were bad luck (Fultz) and some where deeply flawed on their face (Horford). But ultimately, as JayMKE said, he's deeply flawed and a lot of roster moves were put in place to attempt to cover his flaws and show off his few offensive attributes.

You can call him a 4 but, offensively, if he isn't running the show he's kind of useless. He doesn't really roll or, obviously, pop. His post game is meh. He can drive to the rim but just kinda stopped after his rookie year, by and large. The label didn't affect roster construction, the skillset did.

[TheHartBreakKid]

The flawed roster construction had nothing to do with the position label placed on Simmons. Of course some roster moves were bad luck (Fultz) and some where deeply flawed on their face (Horford). But ultimately, as JayMKE said, he's deeply flawed and a lot of roster moves were put in place to attempt to cover his flaws and show off his few offensive attributes.

You can call him a 4 but, offensively, if he isn't running the show he's kind of useless. He doesn't really roll or, obviously, pop. His post game is meh. He can drive to the rim but just kinda stopped after his rookie year, by and large. The label didn't affect roster construction, the skillset did.

Interesting to hear the Sixer fan perspective.

I could not agree more that Simmons, first and foremost, was a deeply flawed player to begin with. Secondly and equally as important, he never did what was necessary to fix his obvious flaws, with no fault to the 76ers. Any effect the position label may have had is completely secondary to that.
I certainly don't believe the position label was the primary factor, or even necessarily a significant factor for what went wrong with this run. Like I said in the OP, I think it's very likely that the Sixers didn't consider the label at all in their roster construction. If anything , I could see them possibly not liking the PG label not because they themselves cared about it, but because Simmons himself did and it affected his priorities.

I do disagree that it the roster construction had "nothing" to do with it, but that's more my opinion than anything and really not something I would/could argue.

Follow up questions:

In the likely situation that it didn't effect roster construction at all, and was irrelevant to the 76er's FO:

1. Do you think fans/media would have been more vocally critical of some moves, esp Horford, if the position label didn't exist?

2. Do you think Simmons himself would have approached his development and training different if the position label didn't exist?

[JayMKE]

I don’t see why being a PG completely precluded hin from any semblance or attempt at scoring or shooting and this is the stuff the guy with the ball does. I think his actions and career kind of speak for itself, if he had the heart and mental maturity of a guy like Giannis he could’ve been an MVP too. That’s what I believe teams saw when he the #1 pick. I struggle to think of a guy with more reluctance to shoot in NBA history.

[TheHartBreakKid]

I don’t see why being a PG completely precluded hin from any semblance or attempt at scoring or shooting and this is the stuff the guy with the ball does. I think his actions and career kind of speak for itself, if he had the heart and mental maturity of a guy like Giannis he could’ve been an MVP too. That’s what I believe teams saw when he the #1 pick. I struggle to think of a guy with more reluctance to shoot in NBA history.

It doesn't, and I agree his flaws/development were far and away the biggest issue. And yeah, I also can't think of another player with more reluctance to shoot either. Maybe young Rondo? Even Rondo was no where close to Simmons' level though.

[Sixersftw]

Follow up questions:

In the likely situation that it didn't effect roster construction at all, and was irrelevant to the 76er's FO:

1. Do you think fans/media would have been more vocally critical of some moves, esp Horford, if the position label didn't exist?

2. Do you think Simmons himself would have approached his development and training different if the position label didn't exist?

1. We're Philly fans, we're vocally critical. Every move that was questionable in the moment was savaged. I don't think Simmons being called a PG or not would have changed fan reaction. Hell, most fans wanted Brogdon with that money iirc.

2. No. Unless you think it would have changed his mental health issues. By most accounts, he works in the offseason and I have it on pretty good authority that those instagram posts aren't flukes. He looks incredible in workouts/closed runs. There is just a disconnect mentally from practice to game time. I will say, maybe Simmons' insistence on being called a PG (a thing that did happen) was to distract from his scoring/shooting flaws and emphasis his passing/PG skills. Idk, just spitballing

[TheHartBreakKid]

Follow up questions:

In the likely situation that it didn't effect roster construction at all, and was irrelevant to the 76er's FO:

1. Do you think fans/media would have been more vocally critical of some moves, esp Horford, if the position label didn't exist?

2. Do you think Simmons himself would have approached his development and training different if the position label didn't exist?

1. We're Philly fans, we're vocally critical. Every move that was questionable in the moment was savaged. I don't think Simmons being called a PG or not would have changed fan reaction. Hell, most fans wanted Brogdon with that money iirc.

2. No. Unless you think it would have changed his mental health issues. By most accounts, he works in the offseason and I have it on pretty good authority that those instagram posts aren't flukes. He looks incredible in workouts/closed runs. There is just a disconnect mentally from practice to game time. I will say, maybe Simmons' insistence on being called a PG (a thing that did happen) was to distract from his scoring/shooting flaws and emphasis his passing/PG skills. Idk, just spitballing

touche regarding question 1.

As for 2, you're probably right and this is the likely to be the case. Part of me just wonders if there is more to it. His insistence on being called a PG could definitely be his way of deflecting blame and might have had no effects on his development.

"Prioties" was the wrong word choice from my end. I don't want to be simplify it to "maybe he didn't work hard enough at it because he thought he didn't need to". He certainly put in work, and I'm sure he made some notable improvements in his shooting that we never saw in games due to his confidence. I just wonder if somewhere inside him he never wanted to shoot, and felt that this flaw wouldn't be a huge deal if the team was built around him.

I'm just spitballing too.... It could easily have been a nonfactor and his confidence issues were fully personal and about how he felt about his game.

I guess it comes down to if you believe he genuinely just froze up on games due to confidence or if he really didn't think it was a huge deal. Of course it could also be a combination of both, and even if it's the latter, there is no definitive reason to think that the label itself played a part.

[SelfishPlayer]

The Sixers have helped Simmons hide by putting him at the PG position.

[MrBigShot]

Regardless of position, Simmons is a guy that hit the genetic lottery and doesn't even really seem to like basketball that much. He puts more effort into what outfits he wears on the bench than into working on his offensive game.

[michaelm]

I don’t think this hurt Simmons, you’d think bigs that play small would more expanded offensive game but Simmons has showed pretty much no interest in developing his game offensively. I think he’s just a very immature and deeply flawed player,

I don't think the label made much difference, he probably wanted and got the label of PG because he couldn't/didn't want to shoot. I personally think his father limited his career when he thought it was a good idea to make him ambidextrous/shoot with the wrong hand as a kid.

He was a terrible fit with Embiid though. I will be interested to see whether he can muster the will to return, and whether he will do better offensively without competing with Embiid for the dunker's spot etc, not that Embiid wasn't better than him in those spots of course. KD would not appear very confident about Simmons returning and making the Nets a contender however.

[76ciology]

Look at what Ben Simmons is reduced into if you remove him at the PG position.

Watch on YouTube

The guy you should watch in this clip is Ibaka and how clogged the paint was.

Would Ben Simmons be PAID if he’s reduced to being at the dunker spot?

Can Ben Simmons still pad his 8 assists per game average?

[76ciology]

Ben loved to play PG because he becomes a special player of his size being able to defend PGs.

It also created a lot of cross match problems in the transition, makes Ben a lot more lethal on transition. And sometimes it lead to a lot of 4 out offense with Ben at the post.

If you slide Ben to the PF, you take away his size advantage. And Sixers were slowly trending towards that with Doc Rivers who was running a lot of PnR, thus you see Ben’s role on offense decline to the point of where he was during that Hawks series in 2021.

And to negate this problem, Sixers added Tobias and/or Al, just so Ben would be defended by smaller guys to give him the edge on halfcourt offense.

The problem with the 2019-2020 squad was Josh Richardson. With Josh Richardson and Ben Simmons, Sixers probably have the worst shooting backcourt of all time. And what’s worse is we took away our only resemblance of the two man game which was our bread and butter offense with the JJ-Biid DHO action.

On a sidenote, people forget that the 2019-2020 were the favorites to make it to the finals by sports media and even 538. That squad was playing well until Embiid got into a fight with KAT that started the end for that team. Personally, my believe was the team tried to build a team that is geared towards maximizing Ben. This made Embiid not happy with the development.

Ben Simmons and Jimmy just aren’t a good fit. You can check my previous post to see why.

[AussieCeltic]

Look at what Ben Simmons is reduced into if you remove him at the PG position.

Watch on YouTube

The guy you should watch in this clip is Ibaka and how clogged the paint was.

Would Ben Simmons be PAID if he’s reduced to being at the dunker spot?

Can Ben Simmons still pad his 8 assists per game average?

He needs to be put in the Draymond role. Using the dribble hand off screen should be lethal with a guy like Kyrie. Simmons is a much better finished at the ring than Green. Honestly, if the Nets use him properly and Kyrie/KD actually come back locked in, I’d have them as favs for the title.

[76ciology]

Look at what Ben Simmons is reduced into if you remove him at the PG position.

Watch on YouTube

The guy you should watch in this clip is Ibaka and how clogged the paint was.

Would Ben Simmons be PAID if he’s reduced to being at the dunker spot?

Can Ben Simmons still pad his 8 assists per game average?

He needs to be put in the Draymond role. Using the dribble hand off screen should be lethal with a guy like Kyrie. Simmons is a much better finished at the ring than Green. Honestly, if the Nets use him properly and Kyrie/KD actually come back locked in, I’d have them as favs for the title.

He’d be great for a team with two combo guards like the Cavs right now and what the Dame-CJ backcourt was. Cavs is an almost perfect fit for him, thats why Cavs was rumored to be highly interested with Ben.

I dont think he’d be a good fit with the Nets. Because putting Ben there means less ball time for Kyrie and KD, and that would already be a victory for the defense.

In the end, no disrespect, but Ben is just a hard player to build around. Specially if your best player is a center.

[JN61]

Simmons is still the by far worst shooter in the league and hasn't shown any willingness to improve.

[Ruma85]

I really cannot comprehand how does the guy work on his shot in the offseason and seems to have confidence in pick up games even the summer league games to shoot the ball, But he won’t shoot it in games that matter it blows my mind. I’m a huge sixers fam but when they drafted him i said your never going to win a title with a guy who refuses to shoot the ball, it’s too easy to game plan for.

[Not2BeBothered]

I don’t think this hurt Simmons, you’d think bigs that play small would more expanded offensive game but Simmons has showed pretty much no interest in developing his game offensively. I think he’s just a very immature and deeply flawed player,

I wouldn’t say he’s deeply flawed, I think he has a major flaw in his game. His unwillingness to look at the rim outside the paint forced Embiid to play further from the basket than he should of. And it’s not an issue of him not putting in the off season work to get better, because every off season some video will surface of him hitting 3’s and hitting shots of the dribble, but once the season starts he won’t attempt them. Wishful thinking but I’m glad the Nets don’t have a dominant big that would be forced to change their game to fit Simmons’ lack of shooting. If KD and Kyrie stay, I could see a lot of scenarios in which simmons is setting screens for them and he’s rolling to the basket, KD and Kyrie can definitely make the pass and can give simmons some easy looks or he can draw the defense in and then kick out to any of the many shooters the Nets have. But as long as Simmons does the things he good at, I’ll be happy with that.

[tsherkin]

We've been watching position labels (or at least traditional ones) become less and less relevant for decades. Inhibition of a player's potential on the basis of position labels isn't an issue with the labels themselves so much as an organization that doesn't look at what a player is actually doing on the court. We've seen plenty of examples of franchises letting players become their own type of player. A little experimentation worked out nicely for both Lebron and KD, for example, and loads of other large ball-handlers. Nikola Jokic is another one who comes to mind. And we can reach as far back as we like to find mold-breaking players and the teams (and coaches) who enabled them to play like that.

I can't say I have any serious insight into Ben Simmons in particular, but the root idea that a position label is the problem isn't really what's going on.

[taikibansei]

Ben loved to play PG because he becomes a special player of his size being able to defend PGs.

While I agree with much of what you say, I want to comment on this. Likely it's just me, but I've never gotten the feeling that Ben "loved to play PG"--or loved to play basketball really.

I have, however, gotten the feeling that he loved being a PG. He liked the optics of this role, how it looked--his image--something which continues to this day. Indeed, wasn't there a lot of tension between Simmons, Butler and Brown because Butler was encroaching on the PG role (and being praised for it in the media)? E.g., here:

https://www.nbcsports.com/philadelphia/76ers/jimmy-butler-point-guard-going-experiment-solution

The Sixers’ solution may already be in the works. Before the game in Los Angeles against the Lakers back on Jan.29, Brown mentioned that he was going to experiment with Butler at point guard. At first, that was kind of eyebrow raising, but when you break it down, it actually makes a ton of sense.

Butler is an underrated playmaker and doesn’t the turn ball over much for a high-usage player. Among players that average at least 25 minutes a game, Butler ranks seventh in turnover percentage (the number of turnovers a player commits per 100 possessions).

And the 76ers did better with Butler at PG. And Simmons didn't like it:

Read on Twitter

So Butler had to go, despite the fact that the 76ers were just a Kawhi Leonard four-bounce buzzer shot away from advancing. (Yes, other things were involved in the decision as well.) And what has Simmons done since? What part of the game has he worked on? I'd argue only his fashion game....