Ben Simmons' shooting struggles were predated by years of confusion around what the problem is, Yaron Weitzman writes.
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Ben Simmons exit meeting post Celtics struggles
After the meetings, Brown told reporters during a news conference that he expected Simmons to spend "intense time" with Townsend in the offseason. Everyone around the team was excited. They felt like a breakthrough had occurred, that Simmons was ready not only to solidify his improvements at the line but also to begin carrying those changes into his shooting overall.
After exit meetings, the players and coaches went their separate ways to recharge. Some time passed, and according to multiple league sources, when Townsend returned to the team’s facility, Brown pulled him aside. Change of plans, he said.
Simmons’ agent, Rich Paul, and family had decided that he’d be better off working with one of his brothers, Liam, a former low-level Division I guard and assistant coach, who now coaches at Division II Colorado Christian University.
Simmons was a former No. 1 pick, one of the team’s two foundational pieces, a genuine superstar, in talent and branding, in a league in which superstars dictate the terms. In other words: Simmons wasn’t required to explain himself to management.
Lack of improving in 2018-2019 (FT% got worse, attempted 25 shots outside 16 feet when he took 40 shots outside 16 feet his previous rookie season)
Jim O’Brien, a longtime NBA coach and former Sixers assistant who was serving as a special adviser to Brown, posed a question during a coaches meeting.
"Name me one area where Ben Simmons has improved," he asked his colleagues.
The room fell silent.
Ben Simmons struggles with identity alongside Jimmy Butler
During 2018-2019 season, Sixers trade for Jimmy.
According to league sources, Simmons’ frustration at being relegated to off-ball duty during the team’s 2019 second-round loss to the Raptors contributed to the front office’s decision to not re-sign Jimmy Butler. Brown had handed Butler the keys to the offense, and management was worried how Simmons would handle having Butler around and monopolizing crunch-time playmaking duties for multiple years.
Bubble 2020
The next season, prior to the league’s mid-pandemic restart, Brown told reporters that in practices, he’d been playing Simmons "exclusively" at power forward. Management, according to sources, pushed Brown to walk back that proclamation.
"I feel more comfortable bringing the ball up," Simmons told me in the summer of 2017. "I feel limited if you put me at the 4 position. I don't feel I can help as much."
It's a pretty extensive article that goes into his LSU days as well but I just can't imagine giving up assets for a player like him who's limited but will never acknowledge said limitation due to arrogance and is essentially enabled by everyone around him.
