One NBA player who is well-qualified to speak on Ben Simmons is doing just that this week.
During a recent interview with News Corp, Brooklyn Nets guard Seth Curry offered some interesting thoughts on his enigmatic teammate Simmons. Specifically, Curry said he thinks Simmons can do without a jumper.
“I don’t think he needs a jump shot,” said Curry, per HoopsHype. “He’s just got to do what he does best – which is defend, rebound, push the ball, make plays for others, and attack the rim. When you’ve got the size and talent like him, who takes not one but two and sometimes three guys to stop him getting to the rim, that is a lot in itself.
“He’s a multiple All Star right now for a reason,” Curry continued about Simmons. “If he can add knocking down free throws at a higher clip, it’s going to allow him to be unstoppable once he puts his head down.”
By now, Simmons’ lack of a jumper is about as infamous as Milli Vanilli’s lack of live vocals. He all but flat-out refuses to fire away from outside the paint and has only attempted 36 total triples in four NBA seasons (making five of them for an O’Neal-esque success rate of 13.9%). That can be overcome in traditional NBA offenses by placing the offending player in the dunker’s spot by the rim. But it becomes an almost fatal problem when that player is also a primary ball-handler like Simmons is. Meanwhile, similarly deficient perimeter facilitators like Draymond Green and Marcus Smart can at least keep defenses honest by pulling the trigger from deep, sink or swim (something that Simmons cannot or does not want to do).
That being said, Curry probably knows what he is talking about here. He has been teammates with Simmons for the last two seasons (both in Brooklyn and in Philadelphia) and is himself one of the NBA’s most accurate 3-point mercenaries. We still have yet to see Simmons actually play for the Nets. But it sounds like Curry (and the rest of the team for that matter) definitely still believes in the 26-year-old.
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