Do the Sixers Even Need Ben Simmons to Shoot Jump Shots?

It still may not be real. No matter how many times you watch the footage of the Ben Simmons three-pointer, what you're seeing never really sinks in. And maybe it never will. The level of cognitive dissonance is overwhelming, to the point where you wonder if you're dreaming, or hallucinating, and start to question the entire reality around you.

That's how hard it is to wrap your mind around the fact that two seasons into his NBA career, the Sixers' position-less phenom finally sank a three during a game. Yes, there had been snippets of footage showing Simmons knocking threes down in the gym, but these were little more than breadcrumbs, an inkling that he was making progress. There's practice or workouts and then there's the flow of NBA action, and as Allen Iverson immortally told us, the difference between the two is night and day. That this happened during the preseason, when defenses are notably lax, is almost beside the point. The specific circumstances matter less than our inability to come to terms with what the footage undeniably shows.

But it wasn't just that Simmons hadn't yet made a three. In his 160 games as a pro, he had attempted only 17 of them. Simmons is a putrid shooter who also struggles at the free throw line. He has no jumper to speak of, which makes his shooting from deep an almost laughable proposition. What makes Simmons such a brilliant and vexing player, though, is that he consistently finds a way to work around these glaring holes in his game. His combination of size, strength, explosiveness, and pure speed alone would be enough to give defenses fits. But Simmons is also a master at pinpointing just the right angle of attack. When he hits the lane, it's already too late. This exquisite sense of space is also what makes him such a deadly playmaker; Simmons is a near-miraculous passer seemingly unencumbered by the concept of passing lanes.

Asking if Simmons needs to shoot the ball is often an incoherent question, as he almost always finds a way to obviate these expectations. Simmons simply plays as if the jump shot doesn't exist as an option. You can even take it one step further and view his entire game as predicated on this negative assumption. While, Simmons's inability to shoot may seem like a liability, this weakness is in some ways central to his identity. Everything about the way he plays seems to arise out of necessity, as if the game only really opens up for him once he's able to step out of the framework of orthodoxy, to say nothing of how difficult it is for opposing teams to make sense of a player whose greatest strength may be his outside-the-box thinking.