Ben Simmons, A top 3 PG


Earlier I wrote about Ben Simmons and why Kendall Jenner will not affect his game at all. I now know that he deserves more. He deserves an article dedicated to his game, not because he is dating a supermodel, but because he is a Superstar himself.

Ben Simmons is a once in a generation athlete. I don’t think many people would argue this. He is a 6’10” freak with one of the fastest top speeds in the league and the the strength to match up with people bigger than him. This is just the physical parts of the game. The worst part for the rest of the NBA is he is one of the most skilled players in the game also. If this isn’t enough I guess you can also add the fact that he is only 22 Years old and only getting better. Anybody that hates on Ben’s game just does not realise, he plays the game to make his team better/win, he does not care about his haters/stats/lack of shots/etc.

People will only talk about Ben and his shooting. They don’t mention that even though he is not good at shooting, and his coach wants him to take at least 4 shots per game, he still is shooting 58.1% from the field. That is the highest shooting percentage of all guards in the NBA. You could even throw small forwards and count them as shooting guards and that statement would still be true. He takes shots that he knows he will make. He does this because he is aware that other people may have better probability shots around him and he would rather pass it away than take a low percentage shot so that some teenage in Connecticut will stop tweeting at him.

Ben right now is averaging 16.6 PPG. This is only .8 more points per game than he scored last year. At first glance you would expect and want more of a jump from a 2nd year player at the age of 22, but the more in-depth you look, the more you can see it is no issue at all. Ben Simmons right now is ranked 22nd out of all point guards in FG per game. He is even behind a couple players who don’t even start. If you adjust Ben’s numbers to make it as if he attempted as many FG as the point guard who ranks 3rd in FG/Game (Kemba Walker) then you can see that Ben Simmons is a Super Star, but he would rather win than have the flashy stats. This experiment spits out 22.48 PPG. Obviously this is not a true science, but many of the variables and problems with this exercise balance out with points that would inflate and deflate the number. For example, Ben’s FG% would likey dip down (Not as low as Kemba’s, but a dip nonetheless), but you can balance that out with the fact this would be his average not including free throws, just from FG’s made. This, to me, is why Ben is so valuable. If you look at the rankings of FG//Game for PG’s you see it is star heavy at the top. Steph Curry, Kemba, Dame, Russ, Kyrie, etc are all in the top 10. If you look to see the names that Simmons is shooting as much as you will see names like Mudiay, Rubio, Barea, Lowry (Missed 10+ games), etc. Simmons with the amount of shots he takes shouldn’t even averaging more than 15 PPG, but due to his dominance in efficiency he sits at almost 17/game.  Ben is also just catching fire right now, in his last 6 games he is averaging 20.66 Points per game and also has 2 triple-doubles, a 15 assist game, and a 22 rebound game. He is dominating and I expect his per-game numbers at the end of the season to be higher than they are right now.

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