Sixers’ 4 most exciting backup center options: Ben Simmons
Ah, to return to the good old days of “Ben Simmons should be a small-ball five” discourse!
In all seriousness, this idea is at least more creative than bringing a traditional-center retread like Drummond into the mix. Simmons at the five makes sense on paper for the same reasons it always has. Centers don’t need to shoot the ball, so Simmons can fit in. He’s big enough to theoretically match the size of smaller bigs in the paint, and talented enough defensively to not get bullied in the paint. At center, he’d be positioned to rebound and start grab-and-go fast breaks, leaking out in transition to where he is most comfortable. And a Simmons-at-center lineup can be filled in with shooters and shot creators more easily than a Simmons-at-point-guard lineup.
In practice, though, Sixers fans who have watched this experiment’s occasional occurrence every season of Simmons’s career knows that in practice, the lineups haven’t worked. Simmons isn’t big enough to be an effective defensive anchor or paint protector, and moving him to the five mitigates his best defensive asset: his versatility guarding wings and guards. Though there have been flashes of Simmons-and-shooters lineups working (recall the massive winning streak at the end of his rookie season), the on-off numbers have ultimately proven discouraging.
Then there’s the elephant in the room: if the team trots Simmons out at backup center this season, it means he’s still on the roster. That’s a situation no one — not Simmons with his California ambitions, not the team that just watched him wilt in the second round for the third time, and certainly not the fans who will justifiably boo him during warmups at the home opener — wants to have to live through. For that reason, though Simmons could be a better option from a purely basketball standpoint than the next two members of this list, he falls below them in the excitement ratings.