Philadelphia 76ers guard J.J. Redick knows a thing or two about shooting threes. So when he was asked following Sunday's win over the Los Angeles Lakers what he thought about Sixers teammate Ben Simmons — who took just his third 3-pointer of the year — firing one up from deep, he deadpanned that he didn't bat an eyelash. That led to Joel Embiid, who also has a propensity for shooting the deep ball, to interject:
Reporter: "What was your reaction to Ben Simmons taking a 3?"
Redick: "I wasn't surprised by it."
Embiid: "You sure?"— Derek Bodner (@DerekBodnerNBA) February 10, 2019
After his miss Sunday, Simmons now sits at 0-for-14 from deep across 135 NBA games. Fortunately, that's not where the Australian makes his money. He'll be heading to his first All-Star Game next weekend on the back of his diverse skill set, which, when firing on all cylinders, sets up the likes of Redick and Embiid to be the ones to knock down the shots from deep.
Redick, in particular, has benefited immensely from playing alongside Simmons, having fired up 7.9 three-point attempts per contest this season entering play Sunday, which puts him on pace for a new career high. It turns out that shooting from deep leads to making from deep for Redick, who has averaged 18.6 points per game in 2018-19, which would be another career high.
What should be terrifying to the rest of the league is the fact that Simmons is an All-Star passing savant at the age of 22, and yet he has not even remotely begun to incorporate the three-point shot into his game. He remains an anomaly in the modern three-point happy NBA, but it's worked quite well for him up to this point.
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