Sixers want Simmons to stay consistent
SALT LAKE CITY - Ben Simmons has been everything the 76ers expected so far. He displayed superior passing skills, a high basketball IQ and a rocket burst in his two Utah Summer League appearances this week. Coach Brett Brown is already comparing the 6-foot-10, 243-pounder to Isiah Thomas and Chris Paul.
SALT LAKE CITY - Ben Simmons has been everything the 76ers expected so far.
He displayed superior passing skills, a high basketball IQ and a rocket burst in his two Utah Summer League appearances this week. Coach Brett Brown is already comparing the 6-foot-10, 243-pounder to Isiah Thomas and Chris Paul.
"It's unbelievable," said Maodo Lo, a guard on the Sixers' summer-league team. "I mean, he's extremely gifted with his size, his body, the things he's able to do on the court."
So what must Simmons concentrate on now?
Staying consistent, said summer league coach Billy Lange.
"We talked about not taking possessions off, battling the urge to rest," said Lange, whose squad concluded league play Thursday night with an 86-75 victory over the Utah Jazz at the Jon M. Huntsman Center. "At this point right now, I feel habit building is more important than duration of minutes."
The Sixers would prefer a 20-minute workload in which Simmons plays competitively on every possession as opposed to his playing 30 minutes and taking plays off to rest. Lange addressed that with the first overall pick in the NBA draft.
"I think that would be great if he could get through the summer league with that notion," Lange said.
On Thursday, Simmons wasn't as involved in the offense as Monday night with T.J. McConnell dominating things from the point guard position. Simmons spent some of the game as a power forward, where teammates rarely found him on the block. On the occasions when Simmons was the ball handler, some of his passes were for naught. The Sixers failed to convert at least four of his on-the-money passes into baskets.
On one fourth-quarter possession, Simmons grabbed a defensive rebound and pushed the tempo. He spun past one defender and then pushed the ball past two mo defenders on a bounce pass to a driving Richaun Holmes.
Simmons finished with six points, seven rebounds and six assists in 28 minutes, 41 seconds. He made just 2 of 8 baskets.
Holmes and Christian Wood paced the Sixers (1-2) with 17 points apiece. McConnell added 11 points on 5-for-7 shooting.
Trey Lyles finished with 22 points for the Jazz (0-3). Former Temple standout Dionte Christmas had 10 points.
Simmons has at least five more opportunities to work on that. The Sixers are off to Las Vegas on Friday to compete in the NBA Summer League. They open tourney play Saturday night against No. 2 overall pick Brandon Ingram and the Los Angeles Lakers at the Thomas & Mack Center.
"I do think it's normal for a gifted basketball player to come through the youth circuit and be able to get away with taking a possession off here or there," Lange said. "But I think he's aware that he won't be able to do that anymore" if he wants to be an elite NBA player.
"I'm definitely giving 100 percent every time I go out there," said Simmons, who was criticized for resting on defense during his college career. "I'm trying not to take any plays off."
So far, Simmons has been so impressive that Brown, after Monday's game, referred to Thomas and Paul when talking about the power forward's unique skill set.
Simmons has displayed a high basketball IQ, good vision, and superior passing skills. For now, he's the team's point forward, a player who can initiate the offense by leading fastbreaks after grabbing defensive rebounds.
But Brown sees him having a larger role as a distributor, a traditional point guard.
"Everyone gets all twisted on what their version of a point guard is," Brown told NBA.com. "When I say point guard, I mean point guard. You've got the ball. You could call him Isiah Thomas, the old Isiah Thomas of my generation. You could call him Chris Paul. . . .
"There are times I think that he can be a point guard. Not Draymond Green. Not LeBron [James]. Not Lamar Odom. That's a point forward. I walk both lines at different moments. To start him off, we'll play him as a point forward."
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