Ben Simmons’ Shot is a Priority to the Sixers

One of the most criticized aspects of Ben Simmons‘ game was his jump-shot coming into this season. The Philadelphia 76ers are making it a priority.

There is nothing wrong with playing Devil’s Advocate when it comes to NBA Draft prospects. In fact, it might be encouraged in some cases.

The success rate on NBA Draft prospects is so low and hard to definitively say before they’ve appeared in the NBA that looking at negative traits of players may give a better view for how each prospect will play out. Often, those negative traits haunt players for longer than the positive traits lead them to success.

Almost the entire NBA fan base played Devil’s Advocate with the player who the Philadelphia 76ers unsurprisingly drafted first overall this season — Ben Simmons. While his game has proven to be rather polished, clean, and even dominant at times, there was still one thing that stuck out from his game like a sore thumb — his jump-shot.

Not all players have the best shot, but when you’re said to be a player that could potentially be the most versatile and impactful player on the floor since LeBron James, not having a shot is a pretty big deal.

More from The Sixer Sense

For the sake of context, James shoots 49.8 percent from the field on his career and 34.1 percent from beyond the arc.

James is a floor general. He fills into the small forward position, but having the ball in his hands is never a problem for him. As one of the greatest players to ever play the game, you have to be pretty good at just about everything.

Simmons is the same type of player, or at least shows that he should be once he debuts. He has gathered labels of “point forward” without ever playing a single game in the NBA.

But can he be a point forward if he can’t shoot the ball? The inclination of most is to say no.

And let’s not go so far as to say Simmons can’t shoot the ball. Let’s just stick with he hasn’t shot the ball. While at LSU, Simmons took three 3-pointers, and took the rest of his shots from 2-point range. He made just one of those 3-pointers, and kept his field goal percentage above 50 percent throughout his freshman season, largely because he took most of his shots at the rim.

The question is, did Simmons take shots at the rim because he wasn’t able to sink shots from anywhere else in the field, or did he take shots at the rim because that’s what the game-plan called for?

We may never know, but I have a tough time believing that a player as good as he is in so many areas has zero shooting ability, simply because he’s been working on his game for such a long time, and shooting the ball is always going to be a part of playing the game, especially in high school years.

Now, even if Simmons does have some shooting ability, it’s probably still not the greatest. LSU — despite the idea that they may have just ignored his ability to shoot and asked him to attack the rim — would have been foolish to not latch onto an ability that Simmons has, and if he was some sort of great shooter and we don’t know it, it’s going to be a huge question mark as to why LSU didn’t draw up more plays with Simmons beyond the arc.

So there’s room for improvement with Simmons. He has a lot of the qualities needed to be a point forward and a floor general, but needs to bolster all of that with a threatening shot. He doesn’t need to have a 3-point shot right away, but if he doesn’t even have a threatening mid-range game, that makes things easy for opposing defenses to figure out and counter. They can back off of Simmons when he has the ball outside of the key and focus on his passing targets until he drives to the rim.

The Sixers know there’s room for improvement, and have made it clear that they’re looking to improve that shot.

As the return of Simmons seems to be getting closer and closer, the Sixers are revealing more of what Simmons’ work has entailed over the last several months while he’s been out with injury. They’ve focused on weight training, form shooting, and classroom work.

Notice how there is only main category that directly relates to refining basketball skills directly — form shooting.

It makes sense, really, and perhaps the Sixers would have done more if Simmons wasn’t inhibited with his foot. Footwork, boxing out, speed and conditioning, and much more depends on a pair of healthy feet, something Simmons and the Sixers didn’t have at their disposal to work with.

Shooting was something they could have worked on though, since the form only relies on upper body. One of the first things Ben Simmons has done in front of the media is take free-throws, something that requires little to no foot action and a lot of upper body work.

The team has now had three months and counting to work with Simmons since he underwent his foot surgery. While he was probably not allowed to shoot right away, that’s a lot of time to refine a shot, and a lot of opportunities for repetitions which will help Simmons get his form down solid.

Next: 2017 NBA Draft Big Board 4.0

Simmons’ shot was important enough to the Sixers that it was included as one of his three main categories of recovery with the team. That seems indicative of how much we should expect from it and from Simmons when he’s officially back and playing real NBA games. Don’t count the jump shot out. It’s almost done with construction.