What could this guy have been doing all last year? When I go into an empty gym, I put up shots. And shots. And more shots. Yeah I’ll get in handling/post moves, but still, you put up shots.
If you put up shots, shots, shots in practice with bad mechanics, you're just going to master bad shots. In order to be a good shooter in the NBA you need to first learn solid mechanics, and THEN do the Ray Allen regimen. He's been taking short cuts his entire life like Lonzo Ball. You can't do that against world class athletes who don't give you much separation.
So you don’t think last year he had anyone from the organization with him in the gym?
The knock on him was always his shot. If they had a full year with him they should have made improvements to his form.
If he didn’t want anyone fixing his shot, that would lead me to believe he didn’t think it needed to be corrected. And as we saw from this season and especially this series, he did not trust taking anything beyond 12 feet. That means he knows it’s broken.
If they're remaking his shot, he could be in a situation like I described where he doesn't shoot in a basketball game for another X years and just acts as an athletic wing like Josh Jackson before rolling it out. I'm thinking if they start working on it now, he may have something non-humiliating within 2-3 years. By 5th year he could have a league average jump shot. But that's going to require asking a 21 year old to do nothing but work on basketball. Kobe, LeBron & Michael would do it. I don't see this kid doing it. I genuinely believe that he will never live out his potential and will fizzle out of the league like MCW did. It's already a 3 ball league and it's only getting worse, and he's so far behind everyone else. Even the worst shooting PGs had some level of offensive shot: Westbrook, Rose, etc. They all had some kind of go to shot that they were comfortable taking and could at least hit the breakeven 33% from 3pt in a pinch. This guy has nothing.
Oh c’mon, guys work on their mechanics during a summer and can overhaul it completely. I’ve honestly never heard of a five-year plan to get a kid a jumpshot. And why would they just start working on it now? Should we go look at the pre-draft scouting reports about him? That was two years ago.
This isn’t a magic trick they are perfecting behind the scenes just waiting for it to be unveiled on a primtetime special. If he had anything at all he would have been putting up 15-20 footers when there was nobody around him.
And we aren’t talking about guys who are poor shooters (like Kidd) turning decent enough to keep the defense honest. We are talking about a guy without any semblance of a jumper.
I cannot recall a point guard (or small forward, whatever he classifies himself as) so completely unwilling to take a jumper as he is. Simply uncanny.
I mean it's pretty obvious why. He doesn't have a jumper because he won't shoot one because
he's a poor shooter, like Kidd. The unveil means "It's gotten good enough that he isn't losing games for his team by shooting." I'm willing to bet that his 3pt % is somewhere around 15-20%, because if it were north of 25%, even though that sucks, it's still better for him to shoot the ball to keep the defense honest. For the Sixers to concede him not shooting, he's probably closer to 15%.
Completely overhaul mechanics over the summer? You're talking about tweaks. Marcus Smart has some aspects of his jump shot that are poor. He is the prime candidate to tweak the mistakes and have a good jumper. Yet, he's been working on it for 4 years with little improvement. If you're talking about relearning how to shoot the ball, that is not easy and there is a lot of history on people
never getting there -- not 5 years... try 15. I'd put Ben Simmons into the "most likely to not get there" bucket because he seems to have a lazy/uninterested demeanor which probably translates into his work ethic. I mean the guy was the reason his team lost the series and he goes up on the podium every single day looking like he doesn't care.
Just to reiterate my earlier point. If your PG concedes that he will not shoot a 3 pointer, your team does not have a pick and roll offense because the defender just goes under the pick and you've just wasted 5 seconds off the clock. The pick and roll has been the most effective NBA attack since the rise of the 3 pointer. To remove that from your team's arsenal is, in my opinion, catastrophic.
Topic: Simmons has serious Flaws in his game (Read 21911 times)