Ben Simmons Can Deliver Ish Smith Boost To Philadelphia 76ers
By Bret Stuter
Point Guard Ben Simmons mid-season arrival to Philly repeats history of Ish Smith. Will his arrival bolster the team’s production in similar fashion?
Point guard Ben Simmons is patiently awaiting his debut in the National Basketball Association. The Philadelphia 76ers are doing their best to hold it together until he arrives. Head coach Brett Brown has gone on record saying Simmons will be a point guard when he joins the team. A true 6-foot-10 point guard. It all goes down in 2017.
Brown on Simmons: "I intend on making him like what we would know to be a legitimate PG and we’re going to try him defending other PGs.” https://t.co/XrotuspRSh
— Jessica Camerato (@JessicaCamerato) December 1, 2016
Something has to give.
Logic dictates that the team will struggle from the onset as Simmons attempts to learn the point guard position as he attempts to learn about his team. Track record dictates that the team will intersperse long losing streaks with an occasional but infrequent win against a struggling NBA team. Conservatively, the arrival of Ben Simmons to a squad of rookies and unfamiliar veterans will only extend the learning curve to everyone, making the 2016-2017 season another “development” year for the roster.
That’s just nuts.
Ben Simmons was assessed as the top overall pick in the nation by a myriad of basketball analysts. And for good reason. He has a unique blending of a center’s height, a power forward’s strength, a small forward’s quickness, a shooting guard’s basketball IQ, and a dash of point guard’s ball distribution. He bring laser-guided assists to a team that is surprisingly robust with outside shooters.
Simmons brings more than a point guard who can dish. He becomes the keystone, the point guard who can score.