NBA Trade Rumors: 5 potential trade packages for Ben Simmons
By Kyle McKee
NBA Trade Rumors: 5 potential trade packages for Ben Simmons.
After a disappointing second-round playoff exit, it seems inevitable that the Philadelphia 76ers will trade Ben Simmons this offseason.
Through the seven-game series against the fifth-seeded Atlanta Hawks, Simmons averaged just 9.9 points per game. That’s abysmal for an alleged superstar.
The more damning statistic from Simmons from that series that everyone has been talking about is his 32.7 percent foul shooting. He went 15-45 from the charity stripe in seven games. That’s brutal.
An even more damning stat from that series for Simmons is that through seven games, he only attempted three shots in all of the fourth quarters combined.
The most damning stat in that series, the one that fewer people are talking about, is his minutes played. Simmons averaged 34.4 minutes per game.
That may not jump out to you because 34.4 minutes is a lot, but come playoff time, you expect a team’s best players to play even more minutes than they were asked to in the regular season.
For example, look at what the Nets just did with Kevin Durant.
In the Nets seven-game series against the Milwaukee Bucks, KD averaged 42.7 minutes per game, including two games in which he played every second. That was way up from his regular-season average of 33.1 minutes per game.
The Nets did that because they needed KD to win, and KD gave it everything he had.
Now take a look at Ben Simmons, whose minutes per game stayed relatively the same: 33.3 in the postseason compared to 32.4 in the regular season.
Do you know why his minutes didn’t go up? Because Doc Rivers couldn’t play him in the fourth quarter.
With his terrible foul-shooting and his style of play that gets in the way of Joel Embiid, the 76ers were better off without him on the floor.
That’s something that should never be said of an alleged superstar.
So with all that being said, it feels inevitable that Daryl Morey and the 76ers deal Simmons this offseason, but where to, remains the question?
Let’s take a look at realistic, possible Ben Simmons trades that make sense for all the teams involved.