Rookie Ben Simmons seems well on the way of earning the NBA Rookie of the Year award, after a year's worth of waiting since being drafted with the top overall pick of the 2016 NBA Draft. How can one say? — well, for starters he's already factoring into opposing coaches' scouting reports and it's only eight games into the start of this young season.
Deployed as a point-forward by Philadelphia 76ers head coach Brett Brown, Simmons presents every coach's matchup nightmare — too fast to be checked by a big and too big to be matched up against a guard.
Just ask Indiana Pacers coach Nate McMillan, who is sweating bullets prior to Friday night's game against the Sixers, via Sarah Todd of the Philly Inquirer.
“It’s unique in the sense that Simmons is a 6-10 point guard. We haven’t seen that in a long time,” McMillan said hours before the game. “LeBron [James] is about as close as a big guard that’s handling the ball as much as he does. Magic [Johnson] was that other guy. The league really hasn’t seen the big point guards in a long time.”
Even fellow players like Victor Oladipo, who is off to a furious start to the season, have recognized the problem at hand — looking for ways to solve the puzzle that the Sixers offense has become this early in the campaign.
“He’s just gifted. To be his size and to be able to do what he does, that’s a gift in itself,” Oladipo said after morning shootaround at the Wells Fargo Center. “We’re definitely going to have to do a great job of slowing him down tonight.”
Simmons still struggles to shoot from the perimeter, but his sheer niftiness around the rim and vision have made him tough to stop. The 21-year-old has already three 20-plus-point games to his name, shooting over 50 percent in five of his eight outings — he is averaging 18.5 points, 9.6 rebounds, and 7.9 assists per game so far.
