Anfernee Simons needed 24 shots to score 23 points in his depleted team's stunning 114-108 win over the Brooklyn Nets on Monday night at Moda Center. Don't fret about that inefficiency, though. For yet another game while moonlighting as the Portland Trail Blazers undisputed lead ball-handler, Simons lived up to the sky-high potential that's made him a fan favorite in Rip City since he was drafted out of prep school in 2018.
The individual and team-wide results speak for themselves. Simons is averaging 27.8 points, 3.2 rebounds and 7.6 assists while shooting 51.1% overall and 44.6% from deep over the last five games, guiding Portland to a 3-2 record despite the ongoing absences of Damian Lillard and C.J. McCollum. Norman Powell, in health-and-safety protocols, missed the Blazers' back-to-back victories over the Nets and Sacramento Kings, too.
But even those gaudy numbers and surprising wins don't quite do the tenor of Simons' stellar performance justice. Here are three factors driving the fourth-year guard's breakout play as the Blazers need him most.
Ridiculous efficiency
Simons began 2021-22 on a high note, building off an impressive training camp with the best basketball of his career over the first two weeks of the regular season. But he struggled from there, averaging 10.8 points per game on ugly 49.4% true shooting from November 6th to December 29th. Simons has turned that substandard efficiency upside down since Lillard was sidelined again after Portland's loss to the Los Angeles Lakers on New Year's eve, a game in which the former didn't play.
Simons' true shooting percentage over the last five games is a 67.9, a sky-high mark reserved almost exclusively for dependent big men who subsist on dunks and shots around the rim. His shot chart is just as impressive.
That ridiculous efficiency is definitely unsustainable. Kevin Durant's career-high true shooting percentage over a full season, for instance, is 66.6, set in 2020-21 during his Nets debut. Simons wasn't especially efficient during his solid start to the year, either. His overall accuracy in the past week is an anomaly.
Still, it's a ringing endorsement of Simons' awesome improvement this season and ongoing evolution as an all-court scorer—not to mention just how high his ceiling might be as a team's first or second offensive option.
Highlight-reel finishing
Simons shot 2-of-11 from three on Monday, pulling up from deep early and often throughout the game as Brooklyn switched across five positions defensively. Even a natural marksman like Simons will sometimes be prone to the whims of deep jump-shooting, especially when the majority of his tries come off the bounce. He'll fare better on that long-range volume more often than not.
The most eye-popping takeaway from Simons' breakout? Not just his proficiency as a finisher, but the variety and difficulty of his attempts. Simons is 9-of-14 from floater range and 7-of-11 at the rim over his last five games, extremely encouraging marks for a player who's been debilitatingly averse to penetration to this point in his career.
Emboldened as Portland's alpha-dog playmaker, Simons is finally using his rare leaping ability and body control to his advantage in the paint.
Anfernee Simons, HOW 😱pic.twitter.com/LKuijgHMvo
— Blazers Nation (@BlazersNationCP) January 11, 2022
The highlight-reel play above is a perfect encapsulation of Simons' burgeoning confidence and immense strides as a self-creator. There are only a few guards in basketball capable of roasting Patty Mills with multiple crossovers, then hanging in the air for a twisting finish over two defenders at the rim, and all of them are stars.
Simons has a long way to go to cement that status, but longstanding hopes of him doing so are getting more realistic by the game.
Much-improved playmaking
Simons has already proven he's more than a glorified shooter. Even if he tops out as a below-average penetrator and finisher, just the threat of his long ball will make Simons a more dangerous overall playmaker than he would be otherwise. The factor that will most decide his trajectory from here is how the 22-year-old develops as a playmaker.
Far more a shooting guard than point guard in seasons past, Billups put the ball in Simons' hands during training camp, assigning him the role of Portland's full-time backup floor general. His progress as a passer was clear in the season's early going, but not of the magnitude that suggested Simons could eventually take the reins as a team's starting point guard or high-usage set-up man.
That's changed of late. Simons dropped a career-high 11 assists in the Blazers' win over the Nets, and averaged nearly just short of seven dimes over the previous four games. Before his emotional career night last week in a win over the Atlanta Hawks, Simons hadn't finished a game with at least six assists since December 2019.
“Obviously I have the ball a lot in my hands, so I'm able to feel the game out a lot more,” he said of his passing improvements. “When I come off the bench, I come in right away and be on the attack trying to score. But now I can take my time, read the defense, pass it a couple times, then go look to score—just play the game for a longer stretch of time.”
Portland, obviously, is in a state of personnel flux. Interim GM Joe Cronin has all but promised major moves to come in advance of the February 10th trade deadline. What that means for Simons remains to be seen, though it's increasingly clear his growth will come fastest and easiest playing a larger role than the one he regularly occupies with the Blazers.
“I can only get better from here,” Simons said.
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