Ben Simmons is like the embodiment of Schrodinger’s cat in the basketball world. We all know he is a star. We have all seen him be a star on the court. We have all seen him outperform everyone on the court. But we have also seen him perform very poorly on the very same court, and we have been unsure whether he is even a start sometimes. So, in a way, he is Schrodinger’s cat. And now, after the recent playoffs performance that he put on, there is an outcry for him to be traded, so that the 76 can actually get to play the game they should be playing. We don’t know what is up with Simmons, but we know that it can be a bit of a gamble to bring him onto the court sometimes. But where does this come from? Maybe we could dive into the history of the player and try to find some answers there. Even if there are no answers, we will get to see who this player really is and understand his background, which might as well be an interesting space for exploration.
Before he was a star
Long before he was the star he is now, Simmons was nothing but another boy, growing up in the Australian suburbs and looking to find a passion to drive him for the rest of his life. Born to an American-Australian basketball player turned coach, as one of the many children in the household, he started playing the game early in his life. At 7 years old, he was already bouncing the ball on the small courts, trying to learn the game that would become a passion and a profession later in life. But at the time, all he was interested in was the game and the fun of it. Which is why he didn’t just play basketball and stayed into other games as well. In the end, he found himself split between Basketball and Australian rules football. A good dilemma to have, since many of his friends were at the time split between playing Aussie live casino games and going to school. The games could not be any more different, but he loved both with a passion and played both with a passion. Except, the time had come for a choice. And when it did come, he chose basketball. Some say it was because his Australian rules football coach decided to make him play a position he didn’t much enjoy. So he quit football, gathered his balls and moved to the United States.
In the US he kickstarted his basketball career in Highschool. He played well as a sophomore and soon started outperforming his rivals. So much more simply because he was so good at actually playing the game, but also he also trained a whole lot more than many around him. Hard work gets noticed in the basketball world, and right after the coaches saw the potential, so the recruiters. Soon after getting into senior year in high school, he was recruited by the Louisiana State University and signed a letter of intent with them. Within a year, he was playing with the LSU team and building towards his professional career, which was to come in 2017, when his rookie year began. And since then, he has been on the court, playing in ways that both impress and disappoint at the same time. While he might be a natural born star, he also has some issues with playoffs, something that has been plaguing him since the beginning of his professional career in basketball.
The modern marvel
Today, Simons is known to be one of the best players on the court, whenever he is there. He is the player with the second most triple-doubles in the NBA right now and he performs impressively in every game he plays. He won the rookie year award and has been a marvel to see every time the season gets into the swing and we start seeing him outperform so many players on the court. But there has been a repetitive problem with Simmons, which is causing us more pain simply because we have seen what he is capable of.
In the Playoffs, Simmons can get pretty bad at performing well. He cannot perform on the same game making level as he does throughout the season. He does make important plays every other game, but his performance is unstable. He fails to do what he does in the regular season and it is like a mystery to many – how can a player, a natural born star, suffer so much in the playoffs?
The problem that many are seeing with his playstyle is the fact that Simmons is not being aggressive enough in these games. What he goes for is an attempt to find a chance to get the ball away from him, so the players can attack from somewhere else. But this means that he often misses out on a good chance to attack. It makes him feel like an extra, someone to pass the ball to so he can pass it to someone else, an in-betweener and a shortstop for the ball. And knowing Simmons, that is not what he is. He is an aggressive player that outperforms everyone else on the court. He gets the ball and he works it until he scores a point, but not in the playoffs.
Currently, in order for the Sixers to be able to make it through the playoffs, they need Simmons to display his best performance. And if he does not do that, they might want to sit him down or turn him in for a better player instead. Otherwise, he is likely to end up costing the team a lot this time around.
