The Recent History of the Philadelphia 76ers, or: The Basketball Gods are Real and they are Angry, part 4: The Simmons Saga
It really all just came down to the fact that Ben Simmons wouldn't shoot.
The Sixers drafted Simmons 1st overall in 2016, shortly after Hinkey's departure. As a 6'10" point guard, Simmons drew Magic Johnson comparisons. His size let him oversee the floor and whip passes across the court - a skill then most associated with LeBron James, another player Simmons was frequently compared to. By playing in a position typically occupied by much smaller players, Simmons created problems for opposing teams on both sides of the court. His length let him keep up and contain smaller guards, and his size let him bully them when they had to guard him.
Simmons was the consensus #1 pick in that draft. He was the guy that Hinkie had originally targeted, and Bryan Colangelo was widely praised for sticking to the plan.
All of this is in spite of the glaring flaw in Simmons' game: he has no jump shot, and cannot score more than a few feet away from the basket. There's a widespread belief about Simmons that he shoots with the wrong hand - he uses his left hand to shoot jump shots, but tends to finish at the rim with his right. Whatever the reasons, he barely attempts those shots, and almost never makes them. This was already a criticism of him in college, and has followed him throughout his NBA career as he continued to not develop any kind of jump shot.
But who cares, right? Surely this whole "won't shoot" thing will settle itself out. Simmons is so skilled in other ways – his passing, his handles, his ability to run the floor, his defense. He'll be fine. And for a few years, it looks like that. Simmons' first year in the league is spent with a foot injury that keeps him off the floor, but in 2017-2018 he plays 81 games and wins Rookie of the Year, much to the chagrin of fellow rookies Donovan Mitchell, who insists he's not a rookie because akshually his first season was 2016-17.
Sure, at the end of this season he was 0-11 in 3-point attempts. But who cares, right? He had 12 triple-doubles, he's gonna be great. The Sixers make the playoffs for the first time in seven years, and they even win a series. Sure, in that second round against the Celtics, Ben Simmons never has a positive +/-, and in game two he attempts only four shots and misses all of them.
But who cares, right? This is still a young team and things can only get better. In fact, in 2019...ah, right.
But you know, in 2020, in the bubble... Simmons was out with a knee injury and the Sixers got swept. Ah. Well, it's not his fault.
Okay, okay. You know, you can chalk some of this stuff up to him being inexperienced, to bad luck, to injury. But we're coming up on the 2021 playoffs. And the 2021 playoffs are one of the most cursed endings to a playoff run of any team ever. Right after the other most cursed ending to a playoff run that also happened to the sixers two years earlier against the Raptors.
Y'see, the Sixers are playing the Hawks. The Hawks are... they're competitive, they're on the upswing this year, but they're the underdog in this series. It's a shortened, chaotic season, but the Hawks finished fifth and the Sixers first. The Hawks are not contenders, they're not expected to win the series, but they already upset the Knicks. And the Sixers... well, they have a bit of a Ben problem.
Ben for his career at this point was more or less a 60% free throw shooter. That's not good, but it's enough. But in this playoff run he's shooting noticeably worse than even his mediocre normal.
In game four of round one the Wizards intentionally foul Simmons four times. He still made about half of those, so it's not like it was a huge coup for the Wizards or anything, but it still becomes a talking point. The Sixers this year have a new coach, Doc Rivers, who is not the most tactful individual, but he's still, at this point, defending Simmons. At this point, he'll tell you that Simmons is great. That Simmons is going to be fine. That Sixers fans should realize that they're lucky to have Simmons. That you don't take Simmons out of the game just because he's getting intentionally fouled.
But it's in round two that the wheels really are coming off. Game 1: Simmons is 3 for 10 from the line. Game 4: Simmons is 4 for 14 from the line. If you really dig into his stats he's not really that terrible; it's easy to cherry-pick and exaggerate here. But the criticism is mounting and so is the pressure. And Simmons is, nominally, the #2 guy on this team. A couple short years ago Bryan Colangelo thought he was going to be #1. He's not playing like that, though.
And then, the sixers are in the unpleasant situation of being in a game seven against a team that's supposed to be substantially worse than them. That game seven is a close, ugly game with not a lot of offense to go around. Joel Embiid will have 31 one points in this game and nobody will remember it. Trae Young will drop some of the most inefficient 21 points in playoff history, shooting 21% from the field and 18% from three. Nobody will remember that, either.
Three minutes left on the clock. Simmons is posting up on Danilo Gallinari. Gallinari is older, slower at this point, smaller. Simmons spins and he's free, he's facing the basket. He has an open dunk if he wants it. Trae Young switches to help in the paint. Trae Young is a remarkable offensive engine but he's 6'1" and a notoriously terrible defender. He certainly can't do anything at all about Ben Simmons right under the basket.
Ben Simmons... passes the ball over Trae Young to Matisse Thybulle, a defensive specialist that Trae was guarding because Matisse is the worst offensive player on the floor at that point.
Throughout this whole series, Simmons has been all but refusing to shoot. He's had 14 attempts in the last three games combined. His confidence looks shot. But this is something else. Simmons created a clean easy basket, an uncontested dunk, and he gave it up. It's beyond a freak result, weird occurrence, or poor decision. It's beyond losing confidence; it's fear. It's career-derailing for him.
Doc Rivers is not the most tactful individual. When asked if Simmons can be the point guard on a championship team, he leads with "I don't know the answer to that question." This goes down as a pretty outlier instance of a coach putting his own player on blast in a traumatic moment.
At this point Simmons is done with the Sixers. When training camp for the 2021-22 season rolls around, he won't report. He basically holds out for the season, claiming both back and mental health issues. He is simply gone, and the Sixers organization engages in an embarrassing staredown with him over the course of the season. Shortly before the 2022 trade deadline, they trade him to Brooklyn for James Harden – who was done with that organization for his own, very understandable reasons.
Ben Simmons never suits up for the Nets that season; he's just out with a back injury. In 22-23 he had a very journeyman-like statline of 7, 6, and 6 on a Nets team that was actively disintegrating. He's coming back from a rough injury and what is by all accounts a very rough time mentally. But it's unclear just how much he's going to come back.
Simmons is, to me, one of the most intriguing players in recent NBA history. Was he always kind of a paper tiger? Like I said at the top: it was always about him not shooting, from the day he was drafted to the last game he played for the Sixers. Brett Brown at one point set a mandate that he attempt at least one three per game. Simmons bricked 17 three pointers over the course of two years before finally making one in November of 2019, not long before the end of Brown's tenure with the team.
Was he someone who could have turned out radically different if he wasn't thrown into the cursed franchise that is Philadelphia? Philly fans were pretty brutal towards Simmons – before, during, and after his holdout. They like to boo in Philadelphia, and that can't have helped. He was also in the middle of, you know, a franchise embroiled in front office turmoil, repeated disappointments, and gross roster malpractice. Simmons watched the team let Jimmy Butler walk to give Tobias Harris a huge contract, and then he watched as Butler took the Heat to the Finals as that team's top player. The more the Sixers failed to meet the lofty expectations put on them, the more the blame was heaped on Simmons. That can't have been great for his relationship with his teammates, either.
Is his career actually somehow over, or does he have some kind of second act in store? Sadly finding out firsthand, at this point, would mean watching Brooklyn games – god, nobody needs that.