Retro Scouting Report: Ben Simmons
The league's most polarizing All-Star is still the same player he was at LSU
“When someone shows you who they are, believe them.”
Scouting is a fickle beast. The whole idea of upside and projecting into the future what a person might become is anything but fool-proof. There will always be mistakes, unforeseen circumstances or developments that quite frankly can’t have been predicted.
On the flip side, the film doesn’t lie. Games and the study of tape reveal exactly who a player is, not necessarily who they can or will become.
In Ben Simmons’ time at LSU, he was pretty clearly a flawed yet elite prospect. Dominant in transition, transcendent as a passer for his size and possessing elite defensive potential, Simmons put all those traits on display regularly in the SEC.
He also showed us who he wasn’t. Simmons wasn’t a natural leader or a vocal guy; he’d blend into the background too easily, default to others and didn’t rally his team or lead them to an NCAA Tournament berth. He wasn’t a jump shooter; he rarely took them and was far behind his contemporaries in that regard.
Now 25 years old, the scouting reports on Simmons haven’t changed much since his time at LSU. What he was good enough at back then, he’s good enough to do in the NBA at an All-Star level. The tape didn’t lie, and it told us exactly what he’d do.
The concerning part: his areas of improvement still haven’t come to fruition, and not due to lack of recognition. Everyone seems to agree those areas were evident from the time he came into the league, yet Simmons has made minimal strides to rectify the issues those shortcomings cause.
Let’s be clear here: the fact Simmons hasn’t become a better shooter doesn’t mean Simmons is automatically not a hard worker. Shooting, in particular, is a delicate craft to perfect.
What’s a more egregious takeaway is not seen on the film: Simmons the person. There were red flags about his work ethic, his leadership abilities and maturity in comparison to other freshmen. That has clearly not improved, evidenced by the saga around his holdout from the Philadelphia 76ers. It should also give many teams pause to adding such an expensive, temperamental star to their team.
Re-drafts are common tools for writers to use, and they have a great deal of popularity among readers. I find them a little unfair; they relitigate the past without taking into account exactly what information was available back at the time of the draft. Readers often struggle to make the distinction between “who had the best career” and “if I could do it all over again, what would I change?”
Simmons would go first overall in any 2016 re-draft from us, regardless of the shooting or maturity concerns. Partly due to a weaker draft class at the top, and partially because Simmons is a great player and can be wildly successful in the right environment. We’ve written about what that environment might be, but it is somewhat concerning to see the same issues popping up from college five years later.