Bold Predictions: Ben Simmons Isn’t a Huge Stretch as an All-Star in 2017

Ben Simmons of the Philadelphia 76ers is a rookie this season, but if any rookies are going to be joining the All-Star team, it’s going to be him.

Going into this season, the league expects Ben Simmons to be the best player from the rookie class. Considering the fact that he was the top overall pick this year, that’s no surprise, and certainly not an unrealistic expectation to put on him.

If one had to select an early favorite for first-team All-Rookie, or Rookie of the Year, it would be Simmons. But how about Simmons making the All-Star team? Now, I know, a rookie making the All-Star team does seem like a bit of a long shot in today’s NBA, but it certainly could happen, especially if Simmons can live up to, and exceed the expectations set for his rookie year.

Rookies making the All-Star team is not something unprecedented. Over the course of the NBA All-Star game’s existence, 45 rookies have been selected to the contest. It was a practice that was much more common in the 70s and 80s, as 16 rookies were All-Stars from 1970-1989, but just 7 rookies have been named to the team since then.

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The greatest change over this period is that rookies coming in rarely are fully developed nowadays. In the past, it wasn’t rare for a high-level athlete to go all four years to school (or at least two or three years) before declaring for the NBA. Nowadays, if you’re a high-level talent, you seem to be wasting time and money staying in school, and therefore, players come into the league underdeveloped.

As the talent level has increased around the league, and more and more players come out of college after just one year, the number of rookies making the All-Star team has decreased tremendously. But Ben Simmons may just be changing the tides for the first time since Blake Griffin made the Western Conference All-Star team as a reserve in 2011.

Simmons and Griffin do play the same position, so it seems like it would make sense for us to compare the metrics of Griffin’s rookie season as a metric for what Simmons will have to do to make the team, but they play such different styles at the power forward slot. Griffin has, of course, molded his game over the last several years, but when he started in the NBA, he was a big power forward, often dominating the paint and catching huge lobs for dunks.

Griffin, in his rookie season, averaged 22.5 points, 12.1 rebounds, and 3.8 assists. I think Simmons will have to meet or exceed Griffin’s points and rebounds, and will have to exceed him in the assist category, since his greatest quality is often said to be his elite passing ability.

Looking at Simmons’ competition in the Eastern Conference, there is almost no way he’s going to make the starting squad. If he did, he truly would have to be some sort of athletic anomaly.

Looking at last year’s starters in the East, however, there’s a slim possibility Simmons could slip in. The power forwards selected (as reserves, not starters) for the East last year were: Paul Millsap, Al Horford.

At the same time, though, Simmons is going to be competing with the guards, since his pass-first mindset and point-forward tendencies put him in the categories of two positions, he has more opportunities to make the team.

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The reserves of the All-Star team are selected by the coaches around the league, and no coach can vote for their own players to make the team. Every coach must select two guards, three frontcourt players, and two wild cards. Simmons could be voted in in any one of those categories, making it somewhat likely for him to get a lot of votes.

According to the way the coaches are encouraged to vote, however, the coach is supposed to vote for multi-positioned players in the slot that would be most advantageous to the All-Star team.

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For Simmons to make the team, ultimately, there will have to be some major drop-offs from last season, and maybe even some critical injuries. That being said, if he can step it up in a huge way in his debut year, and outdo some of his veteran competition, it’s not completely wild to imagine Simmons suiting up as an All-Star this year.