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A bomb hit the NBA community on 2022 NBA Trade Deadline day. With a few hours left to do deals, the Nets sent James Harden to the Philadelphia 76ers and got back Ben Simmons, Seth Curry, and Andre Drummond. Both of the main players involved were due a trade since Simmons was sitting out games, and Harden was reportedly disgruntled with the Nets. Now, the Nets have a new third star in Ben Simmons and it will be interesting to see how he gels with the rest of the Brooklyn squad. Thus, here are two bold predictions for Ben Simmons with the Brooklyn Nets.
Ben Simmons Predictions
He will improve the Nets defensively
Interestingly enough, while many expected great offense for the Nets, their defense was great when the season started. A part of that was due to Kyrie Irving sitting out, due to his hesitance to get the COVID-19 vaccine, and his place was mostly filled by better defenders. It was also due to increased minutes to De'Andre Bembry, who was a great defensive piece for the Brooklyn Nets. Now, even though the Nets lost that touch in the past few weeks, getting Simmons in is a start to a resurgence of the surprisingly good team defense.
It is important to mention that the numbers can be misleading. They were the 23rd rated defense in the league last season, and they are sitting at 20th in the league right now, according to Basketball Reference's defensive rating metric. Still, at a point in this season in early December, the Nets were sixth in the league, according to Sporting News. Since the Nets are a team vying for a title and the age-old saying states that defense wins championships, it was a very good thing for the squad. Ben Simmons is one of the best defenders in the league, finishing second last year and fourth the season before that in Defensive Player of the Year voting.
Obviously, there will be some issues with Simmons, especially getting him back to be fully operational after missing more than 50 games this season. Additionally, he does not move the needle in rim protection, where there is still a gap. However, his length and athleticism will make him an option to guard guards, forwards, and centers. With the pure strength of top Eastern Conference teams, Simmons will need to be on his best defensive game to fully improve his new team. He should be motivated additionally by finally getting out of Philly, which was his goal ever since the infamous end of their series against the Atlanta Hawks in the second round of the 2021 NBA Playoffs.
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Paired up with Kevin Durant, the duo should be able to cope with any opposing player when it comes to the playoffs. They are both premier defenders that can pick up anyone and since Simmons is so good in that regard, he will handle the main threat on the opposing team. That will leave Durant with guarding the second-best option, which will allow him to concentrate on the offense.
Ben Simmons will remain a liability in late-game situations
The ultimate truth is that we really do not know how Simmons will look when he steps on the court as a Brooklyn Net. Based on how he last looked for the Sixers, however, the offensive part does not look too well. Of course, there is a case to be made that if coach Steve Nash sets his cards right, Simmons might be huge, even in offense. Putting him up as center and surrounding him with capable shooters, the Nets can bring the best out of his offensive skill set, which is centered around his passing ability, size, and overall basketball IQ.
Still, there is the issue of late-game situations. Of course, the first two options will always remain Kevin Durant and Kyrie Irving, if the game is away from Brooklyn. With Simmons' issues with free throws, however, the opposition teams might be willing to foul him and make him earn easy points at the stripe. Overall, for his career, Simmons is shooting just 59.7% from the charity stripe, and that could be a huge issue for a team expected to be in many close situations when it comes to the postseason. Of course, he brings so much to the plate that he needs to be on the court, but there might be Nets lineups without the Aussie forward closing out some games if he still does not shoot an acceptable percentage from the line.
There is also his tendency to shrink in huge games. For instance, in the now infamous game seven against the Hawks, the Sixers could have secured the victory if Simmons did not forgo the easy layup to pass the ball to Tobias Harris. That moment has been and will haunt him for the rest of his career and, as said before, we truly do not know how he will look when he steps on the court for the first time since that game in June of 2021. What we know, given everything that happened in the past, is that a situation like this does not exit the mind of a player so susceptible to criticism as Ben Simmons, so his late-game value might be at an all-time low for the Nets.
