(06-21-2021, 02:37 AM)omahen Wrote: Mavs and Philly basically have the same dilemma. Try again to make their max guy work or move on at likely lowest point (so far) of their market value.
However, I see absolutely no way Mavs could make a package that would interest a win now team like Philly. They would never trade Simmons for a bunch of role players or even picks and KP value is way lower than Simmons. I have a very hard time seeing it in a three team trade. Like KP to Toronto (Toronto would realy have to love KP), Lowry and a bunch of Dallas assets (Brunson, DFS?, picks) to Philly and Simmons to Dallas.
Unless perhaps KP marries Doc Rivers daugther, niece or whatever he has available.
As bad as KP's value is right now, and it definitely down, there is no way Simmon's value is higher than KP for several reasons. People will blame the FO dysfunction and Haralabob dictating lineups that screwed up KP. People will point to the fact that Bob (and Carlisle) didn't want to use him in the post and easily didn't do anything to attempt to make that successful (I'm not going back through all that analysis again). People will point to the fact that the Clippers were the worst possible matchup for KP. People will point to the truncated off-season, the rush (way too soon, it seems in hindsight) back from surgery and will point to the bubble Porzingis a few months earlier and will talk themselves into trading for KP. The one thing they can say is that KP is a malcontent...and Simmons is just scared. Simmons, by all accounts, seems to be more likeable than KP...he just refuses to work on his shooting and integrate it into his game, though. Not sure which is worse, honestly.
Simmons shooting has been always been bad and has progressively gotten worse. This isn't a new problem. It's not like a year ago he was lighting it up, had a surgery and rushed back to a compressed season and didn't have it. This is a chronic and continuous problem. It's not an injury or a bad front office or a coach that doesn't get it or a "shadow GM" dictating lineups to a coach or team chemistry or the worst possible matchup in the playoffs.
Let's be real...it's the OPPOSITE of those things. They got one of the best GMs in the league, who made all the right moves, one of the "best" coaches (by rep) in the league who believed in Simmons hard, against a matchup that SHOULD have been great for him. Let's be real, if he's a 6'11" 245 pound guard who is quicker than most, he should have had a field day with Gallo, Collins, Williams, Young...he was bigger and faster than anyone the Hawks had to defend him, but he didn't. This was more of a dream semi-finals matchup than anything for him and he just punted.
Sure, people will talk themselves into Ben Simmons because of his athleticism and the same stuff here...."we can make him learn to shoot." "We can fix his free throws"...but the biggest part of the "we" in that sentence is "he" and he apparently hasn't put in the time or worse yet, HAS and he simply can't do it. It's possible. We can make him guard and battle 5s in the league and not handle the ball in Dallas and he'll be a valuable 30 mill a year guy...that's nonsense.
They are both in bad shape tradewise...but KP is much easier for someone to talk themselves into at this point for all those reasons/excuses...we've seen how GMs do in this league. Simmons is a different problem, and I'm not sure it is fixable...not fully and no one wants to pay 30 mill a year for that...just like that would be the biggest hangup with KP. #grassisalwaysgreener
***Before anyone says "easy for you to say", yeah, you're right. I couldn't get in front of 30,000 screaming fans and execute much of anything competitively against the best in the world night in, night out, with a pile of people publicly going bipolar on me every day all day of the season at my best....and neither could many people on this forum, if any. It's not easy, but it's where Simmons and KP are.***
(06-21-2021, 08:38 AM)Branduil Wrote: Honestly it's mind-boggling to me that he's never gotten his shot fixed. There have been players with "bad" shot mechanics before, of course (see the Matrix), but they made it work for them and were able to be offensive threats. Ben Simmons has gotten this far based on his immense physical gifts, but in the playoffs that's not enough. You have to have actual offensive skills.
And that's the deal. AT some point, it's an extreme fear or an extreme unwillingness to get better and honestly, he may have missed his window to fix it, because no one wants to pay 30 million a year while a guy "learns" to shoot...for Pete's sake, he can't even make up his mind if he can shoot right-handed or left-handed (I'd completely forgotten about that whole thing...geeeez, this is bad).
(06-21-2021, 08:38 AM)Branduil Wrote: Honestly it's mind-boggling to me that he's never gotten his shot fixed. There have been players with "bad" shot mechanics before, of course (see the Matrix), but they made it work for them and were able to be offensive threats. Ben Simmons has gotten this far based on his immense physical gifts, but in the playoffs that's not enough. You have to have actual offensive skills.
And that's the deal. AT some point, it's an extreme fear or an extreme unwillingness to get better and honestly, he may have missed his window to fix it, because no one wants to pay 30 million a year while a guy "learns" to shoot...for Pete's sake, he can't even make up his mind if he can shoot right-handed or left-handed (I'd completely forgotten about that whole thing...geeeez, this is bad).
When Doc Rivers was asked if Ben Simmons can be a point guard on a championship team, and he said "I don't know" -- Doc Rivers, who's about as much of a blind faith player defender coach as there is....{low whistle}...that should speak volumes.
"There are no friends on the court." - Luka Doncic