I Have Become a Ben Simmons Guy

Things change.

[photo: @Sixers]

Andrew Unterberger is a famous writer who invented the nickname 'Sauce Castillo' and is now writing for The Rights To Ricky Sanchez, as part of the 'If Not, Pick Will Convey As Two Second-Rounders' section of the site. You can follow Andrew on Twitter @AUGetoffmygold and can also read him at Billboard. 

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Last season, at the height of the Sixers’ internal and on-court regular-season turmoil -- which looking back wasn’t even really all that high, though it never feels not-necessarily-that-high in the moment -- I remember listening to a Ringer NBA podcast discussion about the team, and about Ben Simmons in particular. Amid all the logical discussion about the Sixers, their current struggles and their long-term outlook, former Ricky live pod guest Chris Ryan essentially threw down the emotional gauntlet by proclaiming that he was ride-or-die for Ben Simmons. No matter what was actually best for the team at that point, he said, he felt they had to see it through with their polarizing maybe-point guard. 

It struck me at the time because I don’t remember it being a perspective I’d heard about Ben Simmons before, or even really considered. Since he’s been here, Simmons has not been what you’d call a fan favorite -- at any level of the fanbase. Casual fans get mad that he doesn’t score more, and that he’s seemingly gotten shut down before in the playoffs. Analytic-minded fans smack their head at how much his lack of spacing hurts the team’s offense, and wonder why he won’t adapt his game to fit more around Joel Embiid and the rest of the Sixers’ roster. And Deep Process fans -- well, except one, we’ll get to him in a sec -- bemoan the fact that they never really had time to develop an early emotional connection to Simmons, since he wasn’t really with us during the bad times and instantly became a lightning rod when the team was good. 

And then, of course, there’s Ben Detrick. Simmons’ most notable and committed supporter in the public space -- someone who’s defended him more consistently and obstinately than the Boston Celtics -- does so on stunningly dry statistical terms, insisting that doubts about Ben from fans and critics alike are all in their respective heads, and that the team’s on-court issues are strictly the result of the rest of the roster needing to fit around him and/or generally get on his level. It’s a perspective that almost baits you to dismiss it as Galaxy Brain, and even though I do believe there may be some degree of truth to it, its stubbornly unwavering nature in the face of all arguments to the contrary can’t help but feel like at least somewhat like a bit. 

I can’t quite get to the Detrick place with Simmons. But I might basically be there with Chris Ryan at this point. 

I’ve had my own kind of rocky relationship with Ben. I wanted Brandon Ingram over him in the draft, though not intensely enough to really make a thing out of it. I felt kinda lukewarm about him in his Summer League debut, since he seemed like a really unskilled scorer -- and even though his passing was terrific, I wasn’t sure what else he was particularly exemplary at. During his rookie year, I definitely made the Michael Carter-Williams comparison at least once, and (pre-INPWCATSR) I even submitted a question to Mike and Spike wondering if Sam Hinkie would’ve considered trading Simmons in the offseason were he still in charge. 

And on a personal level, he just didn’t seem like my kind of Sixer. He was aloof with teammates and the media, often coming off as smug in interviews. His on-court play wasn’t gratifyingly demonstrative or admirably stoic, just kinda dispassionate and sneering. Nothing about his off-court story made him seem like a particularly compelling (or particularly Process) figure. If he had friends or confidantes in the locker room it wasn’t clear who they were -- it’s hard to even remember him and T.J. having any particularly nice moments together. He didn’t even have the best half-Australian accent on the team. He felt kinda like… well, like a jock, a non-underdog, someone you (or at least I) wouldn’t have wanted to be friends with in high school. 

Over the years, though, I’ve started to see the appeal of his general smugness. Jared Dudley helped: While Joel Embiid would’ve undoubtedly risen to his level of trash talk in last year’s first-round matchup with the Nets, and made a thing of it throughout the series, Simmons just dismissed it with a half-snort and an “It’s Jared Dudley” -- before proceeding to burn a hole through his chest for the rest of the series -- which was the exact level of response that Jared Dudley merited. He’ll never be as galvanizing a personality as Embiid, but he’s a good foil for him -- sometimes you need the guy who’s going to pound his enemies into the ground and let them know before, during and after that he’s doing as such, and sometimes you need the guy who’s just going to roll his eyes once and then quietly go to work on dismantling them. 

I’ve also really come to respect and enjoy Simmons’ game. His defensive versatility is truly otherworldly, surpassing even his passing as his on-court calling card and becoming as vital to the Sixers’ success as Embiid’s rim protection. But his passing is still truly electric, and even as recently as Monday night’s game in OKC, I was just stunned by the timing and precision of his distribution, opening windows for his teammates that just shouldn’t be there given the roster’s half-court limitations. And while I still get frustrated at some of the bunnies Ben misses and his occasional lack of scoring instinct, he does seem to be getting smarter at knowing the best angles towards and around the basket, and how to use his length and strength to score over and around defenders -- maybe even showing a touch of finesse here and there. It drives me Bananas Foster when he shows up eighth among guards, behind Derrick Rose, Zach LaVine and two friggin’ Celtics in All-Star voting; there’s no way he’s not one of the 20 best players in the NBA. 

OK, maybe there’s one way. I won’t pretend that I’ve come to explain the non-shooting away as Not That Important. The primary reason why Simmons’ passing is so needed in creating advantages for the Sixers in the half-court is because his own lack of spacing (particularly combined with Embiid’s post play) makes things so automatically cramped for everyone. Brett Brown & co. have gotten better at putting him in situations to minimize his limitations -- the snug pick-and-rolls with Joel, the actions with Josh Richardson using Simmons as the screener -- but there’s still at least one crucial possession a game where the Right Play would be a kickout to an open Ben, and he either charges into traffic from there or cuts before the pass even has the chance to arrive. It’s suffocating, it’s a real problem, it very well might get Brett fired, and it doesn’t seem like anyone knows how to make it better, including Simmons himself. 

But you know what? I get it. I mean, I don’t get it, but I get it. I get that in life, sometimes there are things you just can’t quite get yourself to do. You don’t have any particularly good explanation for not being able to do them, you’d like to be able to do them, you know it would improve your own life and the lives of those around you to be able to do them, but you’re still unable to do them. Others try their best to motivate you to do them, you try to motivate yourself to do them, you do anything you can to put yourself in the best position to do them -- but for whatever reason, it comes time to actually do the thing and you just can’t do it. Maybe you will someday, and maybe you won’t, but there’s no simple unlocking of it in the meantime. I don’t know what Ben’s particular block is when it comes to shooting, but I certainly get the idea of having such a block. 

And maybe that’s why I do feel more connected to Ben Simmons than I used to. For a guy who seems like such a natural frontrunner, a beautiful athletic specimen who seems to have every natural advantage that a person could ask for -- it’s such a basic human thing to have one thing standing between you and every goal you could hope to achieve in this life, and for that one seemingly small hurdle to present itself as an entirely untraversable chasm. For a while it seemed like it was maybe some combination of laziness and arrogance that had convinced Simmons that he simply didn’t have to shoot, but I no longer believe that to be a logical explanation -- his basketball IQ is too high for that, and as Derek Bodner has pointed out recently, nobody who works as hard as he does on defense and improving himself on that end could really be accused of just phoning it in. There’s something deeper to Simmons’ non-shooting than just not wanting to get in the reps, and while recognizing that doesn’t do the Sixers any good, it does make him more relatable. 

So what does that actually mean for me -- that I’d prioritize him over Embiid now? Of course not: Joel will always be my No. 1, and no display of bleeding-heart humanity on Simmons’ behalf will ever change that. But it does mean that I’m in the Chris Ryan space of being in it with Ben until the end now, of refusing to accept any final outcome with the Sixers that doesn’t include him as part of it. I don’t know how they’re going to get around his non-shooting, exactly, but I know that they better do whatever they can figure it out, ‘coz we’re all gonna be here for a while. Nice try, Golden State, but even though it’s entirely possible that neither Embiid or Simmons will ever be as good together as they would be apart, they’re both too good, too indispensable and just too much a part of us now for me to ever be OK with parting with either.