God dayum 😲
Should be in DPOY convo. Most versatile defender in the league.
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Ben Simmons’ Versatility
His unique combination of speed and athleticism allows him to cover plenty of ground. His 6’10” stature means he can match up against any position. Simmons is almost always defending the opposition’s primary scorer, but his weak-side defense is excellent, too. Of 1930 minutes played this season, Simmons defended “core players” or “a player [that] has played at least 35 clutch possessions in the regular season and has been on the floor for at least 75% of his team’s clutch possessions in games in which he was available that season” more than anyone in the league.
Krishna Narsu elaborated on a concept created by Patrick Miller of Nylon Calculus, which attempts to measure a player’s defensive versatility. According to their description, “A player who guards all five positions at 20% each will have perfect equality while a player who guards one position 100% of the time will have perfect inequality.”
Simmons has defended four of the five positions, usually at 20% or more, for all three of his seasons in the NBA. Because of this defensive versatility, Simmons has scored an 84 or higher since 2017 and led the league in his rookie year. Despite earning a career-low 84.4 versatility score in 2019, it was good enough to thrust Simmons into top-10 league-wide for the third straight season.
In comparison to Leonard, Davis, and Gobert, three of the NBA’s most renowned defenders, Simmons’ versatility scores are superior. Leonard is the only one of those three to score close to Simmons, but did not spend enough possessions defending opposing guards.
The reason Simmons’ versatility is crucial for Philadelphia is because of the matchup flexibility it offers. In 2019, Simmons defended the opposing team’s “Option 1” for 27.6% of his minutes. Of players to log at least 1,000 minutes this season, Simmons defended the opponent’s number-one option the third-most in the league.
In addition, Simmons defended the secondary option on opposing teams for 16.3% of his minutes this year. This means that he spent more time guarding “Option 2” than Paul George, Jaylen Brown, D. Green, and LeBron James spent guarding opposing teams’ 1s or 2s.
And...
K. Leonard & P. George defended by Ben Simmons this season:
‣ 47 Poss.
‣ 15 PTS
‣ 6-14 (42.8%)
‣ 2-5 3P (40.0%)
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Simmons held J. Butler, J. Tatum, & P.Siakam under 5 PPG.
Simmons held B. Beal, L.James, D.DeRozan, T.Young, R.Westbrook, J. Harden, J. Morant, K.Irving combined 21/75 (28.0%). @nbastats
When the Lakers met the Sixers in January, Simmons totaled 4 steals and 3 deflections while forcing LeBron James to turn the ball over twice en route to a 2-of-9 shooting night.
L.Doncic, D.Lillard, D.Russell, J.Morant, and D.Mitchell all have more turnovers than assists against Simmons.
This post was edited by Sixers on Jun 13 2020 06:01pm