It’s clearly time for Ben Simmons and the Sixers to part ways. As much as the team might insistthatSimmons will eventually rejoin the roster, too many bridges have been burned — specifically between Simmons and head coach Doc Rivers, and Simmons and the Philadelphia fandom — for him to ever be a part of another Sixers playoff run.
However, because of how messy Simmons’s departure has become, some Simmons pessimists have begun to view the idiosyncratic wannabe point guard’s departure as a panacea for all the Sixers’ ills. While he unquestionably needs to be moved, it’s easy to forget how many positive things Ben Simmons does on the court.
Let’s take a look at three holes Simmons’s inevitable departure will leave for the Sixers to fill.
Holes Sixers must fill after Ben Simmons trade: Transition offense
For all his struggles when the game slows down, Ben Simmons is an absolute terror in transition offense, especially when he has confidence to push the pace. Against weak regular-season defenses that don’t have time to scheme for his assault, Simmons grabs rebounds and gets downhill like a bull in a china shop, creating efficient looks.
Last season, he relied on transition more than most players in the league for his buckets, scoring 22.9 percent of his points on the break according to NBA.com’s statistics. He averaged a full 3.3 transition points per game in addition to 2.7 points off turnovers, adding up to the equivalent of three baskets per game simply from pushing the pace.
Simmons also shot above 60 percent on his attempts with more than 15 seconds left on the shot clock. For a player whose limited shot diet and free-throw struggles made him an oftentimes inefficient scorer, transition offense was the one area where Simmons could always hang his hat. Even in the most passive of games over the past few seasons, he’d be due for one or two steal-and-slam highlight plays per game.
The Sixers are not a team built to operate in transition. It’s a lot easier for behemoth Joel Embiid to conserve his energy when he isn’t sprinting up and down the court after every shot attempt, and co-star Tobias Harris prefers to work in the halfcourt as well. Without Simmons to push the ball forward, the team’s transition offense will become practically nonexistent.