Philadelphia 76ers guard Ben Simmons has been in hot water for the last week after his uninspiring performances in the playoffs. The Sixers have made it clear they're going to work with him to improve his shooting, however, but it does seem like he hasn't always been an awful shooter.

Simmons' high school head coach at the prestigious Montverde Academy in Florida, Kevin Boyle, recently spoke on his former player's woes, per NBC Philadelphia:

“I think it’s more a mental thing than physical thing,” Boyle said. “I know there’s some things that have to be cleaned up there. I thought his shot was pretty good coming out of high school. He had a slight slant to the left, but very slight. And when he first got to the Sixers, I don’t know what really happened, but his form changed — really, technically not correct — I think maybe trying to straighten him out too much with his arm, ended up opening his arm up. It didn’t look good, and I think he lost confidence — the way it appeared, and also the result.”

“You start getting some criticism, so you stop doing stuff that people are going to criticize and you get self-conscious about. … I’ve seen him many times go 12 for 15 from the foul line, 11 for 16, 10 for 14. That was regular in high school, those type of numbers. And now you’re struggling to go 3 for 10. Obviously it’s mental, when you’ve done that before.”

Well, there it is. Before joining the Sixers, Ben Simmons could actually shoot to some degree. Well, at least from the charity stripe. He looked timid to even try and score at all towards the end of the Hawks series. It's pretty clear that it's a mental block holding him back right now.

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While Philly fans want to franchise to trade him, it does seem like they will ride it out with Simmons for the time being. He's even considering changing his dominant shooting hand from left to right this offseason in order to fix the shooting struggles.

Nevertheless, this should be good news to the Sixers faithful. If Ben Simmons could once shoot the ball, why can't he find that touch again? It's definitely possible. Maybe just a small change in his mechanics could do wonders.