Philadelphia 76ers Ben Simmons: fad or new NBA era?
By Bret Stuter
Make way, for NBA Tall Ball
With the absence of top pick rookie Markelle Fultz and versatile veteran guard Jerryd Bayless, head coach Brett Brown has stitched together a starting lineup of Ben Simmons, J.J. Redick, Robert Covington, Dario Saric, and Joel Embiid. That places the Philadelphia 76ers tall ball lineup onto the basketball court simultaneously. Sans Redick at 6-foot-4, the remainder stand at 6-foot-9 or taller. Of course, that means this group is awfully susceptible to smaller quicker lineups, right?
Only they are not. In fact, their aggregate performance appears to be… fictional.
The numbers don’t lie
Per NBA.com/Stats, the tall ball lineup has logged in 11 games, and played 126 minutes together. Why? Well, the offensive rating is 116.0, and the defensive rating is 86.7, for a net +/- rating of 29.3. That’s an incredible lineup folks. But it gets better.
Timothe Luwawu-Cabarrot is still raw and developing. But he is a full two inches taller than J.J. Redick. Swap in TLC for Redick, and the full force of Tall Ball begins to rock. Offensively, the team skyrockets to 185.5 offensively, and at 104.9 defensively. That net rating of 80.6 is almost unfathomable. Luwawu-Cabarrot is just one more taller player who can defend at a better than average manner. The team also has 6-foot-7 Furkan Korkmaz who can bump up the altitude as well.