Slim Charless wrote:So long time Sun fan. I've been thinking IF Philly loses tomorrow what would everyone think about trading our pick (non-Zion) along with Bridges for Ben Simmons? I think if we play him at PF-massive hole for us while grabbing a point that can shoot threes i.e: Seth Curry that would work.
So we'd have:
PG: Curry
SG: Book
SF: Warren
PF: SImmons
C: Ayton
Ayton would obviously need to play better D but that's alot of shooting to make up for Ben's lack of it. We run the offense through Ben who has great vision and Book and Ayton hopefully can play up to potential.
Thoughts?
Welcome to the Board!
There is a thread on the Trade Board that a Spurs fan created that is somewhat similar Simmons/Simmons for Warren/#2 (Morant), so ill just copy/paste my answer from there:
Kerrsed wrote:Man, this is a tough one for me.
Simmons is talented, there is no doubt about it, but the kid simply cant shoot the ball. How many instances have we seen where teams leave him completely open and pull his defender away to double someone else? It happens all the time. The Suns have already experienced that. Booker constantly gets double and triple teamed because of the Suns lack of shooting. Adding Simmons to the mix isnt going to help. Having absolutely no 3 point shot is a killer. Him being able to get our guys the ball is nice and a definite plus, but the shooting kinda dooms us. I also could care less about how many rebounds a PG gets. To me, his 9 rebounds a game is rebounds he is taking away from the Bigs who's job it is to grab them.
And yes, im labeling him as a PG and not a SF because he is a PG. He is doing exactly what a PG does in traditional basketball, bringing the ball up the court, creating plays for others, running the offense.
Suns could do just as good going after Lonzo Ball for probably what would be a cheaper price. At least he can hit a 3 every once in a while. If the Lakers had a big like Embiid and better players all around, i wouldnt be surprised if Ball turned out to be a better player than Simmons.
I also think their defense (Not great, but good/ok) are about equal as well, and thats mostly due to their size/length more than anything.
But then again, as someone mentioned before, Simmons is a known quantity in the League, where Morant isnt, so who knows if the kid will boom or bust. He could be the next John Wall or he could be the next Markell Fultz. That unknown-ness and my gut telling me that Morant will end up struggling in the NBA tell me to take the Simmons deal and pray that we can fix his shooting like we did with TJ Warrens.
As for the rest of the deal, im fine with it. Warren is a solid player and has recently learned how to shoot 3's at a great clip, but i find his defense lacking. He also has a bad habit of falling to the floor on like 75% of his trips to the basket and always seems to go down to mystery injuries every season. We also have Bridges and Oubre (If we bring him back) who also play the same position, so to me that makes him expendable. Im also a fan of Jonathan Simmons toughness and defense and think he is exactly the type of player you want coming off the bench to help stop the opponents from going on a run when your star SG is taking a breather.
So yeah, pro's and cons for both, but in the end, i think i would have to do the trade......only if there were no better offers from other teams for Morant. Great job by OP for coming up with this idea. If it makes me think this much about it, then it has to be a pretty good even trade.
One of the funniest things to come from that thread was in response to my post:
Lets not forget Simmons is shooting 100% from mid range in these playoffs.
So as i stated, i would do THIS trade, but dont think i would do Bridges instead of Warren (Not to mention Warrens salary matches up more closely to Simmons as well).
But man, if Simmons could just learn how to shoot the damn ball, got to get that kid in touch with the guy who worked with Warren and fixed his shooting, then he would be a deadly PG.
