Who really is Ben Simmons’ closest comparison?

The Holy Trinity

• LeBron James
• Blake Griffin
• Giannis Antetokounmpo

No, I’m not saying that Ben Simmons is going to become the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. But these three players are Ben Simmons’ best-case scenario, and they are a bit God-like.

There’s few players that play like Simmons. He is a primary ball-handler for the team, yet is also large enough to defend most big men. There are other “point forwards” in the league, but most of them are too small to defend true big men (think Gordon Hayward or Jimmy Butler).

For the shot charts, I’ll be using 2017-18 data for Ben Simmons (because it’s our only data) but 2016-17 data for everyone else (because it’s a larger sample size). You could argue that five games is too small of a sample size for Simmons too, but I don’t think his shot selection will be changing very dramatically any time soon.

In terms of actually on-court play, these three players seem the closest: super-sized forwards that can handle the ball well and essentially run the point. However, there’s some flaws to each.

Firstly, LeBron is just such a better all-around player, including shooting. Especially in the playoffs, LeBron takes it to another level and is a threat from everywhere on the court. Even inside the paint he is significantly better than Simmons, shooting 70 percent to Simmons’ 51.

LeBron has also shown the ability to guard all positions, one through five. Simmons has maybe been able to guard three to five, if I’m being kind. He can hold his own well enough on a switch, but you wouldn’t put Simmons on Kyrie Irving or Steph Curry on purpose. Needless to say, LeBron has a million secondary aspects to his game that Simmons hasn’t even started to develop yet.

Griffin is an interesting case. When playing alongside Chris Paul, he rarely got to be the focal point of an offense, but now he essentially is. The Los Angeles usually start Patrick Beverley at the point, who’s more of an off-ball player (like Bayless is for the Philadelphia 76ers), which allows Griffin to be the fulcrum of the offense in a way that he hasn’t before.

Griffin has responded well to the increased pressure, but he’s still not truly a “point.” He handles the ball well for a big man, but his handle isn’t that advanced overall. He’s a worse ball-handler and passer than Simmons, but has recently extended his range out to the three-point line. He doesn’t really capture Simmons’ essence: let’s try and do better.

Giannis is also a curious player to inspect, in that the Greek Freak himself is also so one-of-a-kind. He’s also developed quite a bit from last year too, which makes this even harder.

Last year I would’ve said, “yes, Giannis is also a bad shooter (though still better than Simmons), but he’s too lanky to hold his own in the post against true centers the way Simmons can.” Now however, the former Spartan Stringbean (I’m sad that I only have contrived this nickname now that it’s become irrelevant) has turned his body into a tank.

Giannis used to be able to use his lateral quickness and legnth to just get around people, whereas Simmons is more of the type to bully a smaller player on the way to the basket. Now, Giannis can do whatever he wants. No one is Giannis; Simmons doesn’t really match him either.