Luke Swiatek
Well, he’s certainly been a whole lot better than I expected. I remember thinking to myself, “I hope Simmons fits well with Embiid,” but now I find myself thinking “It sure is good that Embiid fits with Simmons.”
Maybe that’s just semantics, but I feel as though Simmons might actually be better, which is crazy because Embiid is so good too. But Embiid actually slows our offense down with his post-ups and lack of passing at times, and when he’s in without Simmons our offense doesn’t always look pretty. But when Simmons plays without Embiid, the magic still seems to flow.
BBallBreakdown had a great video recently talking about Simmons and some of his shortcomings and shot mechanics. One thing they mentioned is his poor footwork and shot release timing. I already feel like he’s actually shot better than I expected, so if he could fix that kind of stuff, he could at least have a consistent mid-range jumper, which is encouraging.
I never really expected Simmons to score this well. I thought he would operate like a true point guard, and maybe average something like 9-7-6 or something. I definitely did not expect him to be getting close to a triple-double every night and scoring nearly 20 points per game.
As a rookie right now, Simmons is a matchup nightmare. Teams have gameplanned to stop him, and he’s effectively countered those gameplans already. I’m scared to see what he’ll look like in five years… but I’m also so excited.