Danny Green gave some very interesting insight into Ben Simmons’ character.
Green was a teammate of Simmons on the Philadelphia 76ers this season. Simmons completely crumbled during the playoffs and actively refused to shoot.
Simmons is withdrawing from the Olympics to get his head and his game straight. He is also considering a big change to his shot.
Green spoke on his “Inside the Green Room” show for an episode published last week and addressed the Simmons situation. He said he feels Simmons is afraid to fail and needs to be actively pushed to make a change and take a risk.
“You can tell Ben’s the type of kid if he’s not encouraged, if he’s not pushed or forced to do it, he’s not the type to take that risk,” Simmons said. “He’s a high IQ guy . . . He gets paid to do what he does because he’s so good at it. Mind you, he doesn’t step outside that box because he knows ‘I’m good at this, I don’t need to step out.'”
So that’s part of the problem. Simmons has been able to get away with having a weak shot for this long. But now he’s come to a point where he needs to address it and fix it. That is going to be a challenge for the reasons Green noted.
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