If teams are holding back their best offers because they're banking on Morey needing to deal Ben before camp, it makes sense for Morey to continue holding. Basically tell the low-ballers, "If you think a disgruntled star will hold me hostage and force me to accept below-market-value for his talent, you're dead wrong, man."
But he doesn’t want fair market value. He wants way better than fair market. I actually think he would have already gotten fair market if he wanted it. The rumors are basically that he’s trying to fleece teams.
I bet the other teams are not lowballing him. Sure they might be holding one minor piece back as you would do with any negotiations, but I think the main pieces have been offered. Morey is trying to impress his new employer, but so far he is not impressing anyone.
Technically, yes. I guess Morey is the President of Basketball Ops. Still, I think Morey would have to sign off on any deal.
The question is, what is fair market value for Simmons? I think that's a pretty complicated question--Simmons basically does everything possible at a star level--except shoot. The first part of that assertion is pretty incredible and speaks to one of the singular talents in the game; the second part of that assertion has so far proven to be a fatal flaw, as shooting these days tends to be the skill that ties everything else together. If A. Simmons can shoot at even a passable level in future or B. a team figures out how to maximize all his myriad talents while minimizing his one flaw, Simmons will be one of the several most valuable players in the game. If neither of those happens, he'll continue to be an individually brilliant basketball player who's worth significantly less than the sum of his parts in five-on-five basketball. That makes his value a bit of a function of the eye of the beholder. I would say reasonable minds could disagree on Simmons' trade value.
NO!! Anyone who disagrees with MY valuation of him is wrong. Don't you know how the internet works? Oh wait, you said "reasonable". That doesn't apply to internet discussion. Carry on.
He DID do that. Do we know if he's still even that guy? He looked completely broken in the Hawks series. So whoever takes him is taking a gamble.
He looked like a guy stuck way too deep in his head in the heat of a tight series, to me. I don't think it's at all likely that he's "broken" in some permanent or semi-permanent sense.
overall I think you've threaded the needle on the Simmons conundrum. I'd quibble about saying "he can do everything except shoot". You need to tack on 'from the perimeter' to that sentence. Simmons is a good shooter, within his range. Or, at least, he's a good scorer within his range he has a career TS% of .579 and that mark has been over .590 the last two seasons. That's good shooting considering that the NBA average has fallen in the .550-.560 range the last few seasons. Compare Simmons to CJ, the guy we have been talking about trading for Simmons. CJ is a good shooter, obviously, but his career TS% is only .553, considerably lower than Simmons. CJ averages 1.187 points/shot while Simmons averages 1.375 points/shot. CJ is not as good a scorer as he is a shooter because he doesn't get to the FT line. Simmons is a better scorer than he is a shooter because he does get to the FT line....a lot, even though he's not a good FT shooter Simmons is one of those uber-talents who needs a specialized roster to maximize his talents. The Philly problem for Simmons is that their franchise player is a big man. And big men need space in the paint to operate. Simmons does not create that space because of his big flaw. Embiid and Simmons are oil and water so then, does Portland have the type of roster that could maximize Simmons and unlock his potential. Dame sure as hell is a different franchise player than Embiid so there's a great start. Powell at SG would add on to that and so would RoCo at SF. The issue would be Simmons and Nurkic. That might create many of the same issues that Simmons/Embiid have. But nothing says Nurkic has to remain a Blazer for the next 7 years, or even next full year and obviously, there's another big issue. The door for Dame leaving Portland has always been shut, latched, and triple locked. But that door is wide open now because of Olshey's incompetence. It won't close again. Dame is still inside, but he's looking out of that door and has definitely taken a couple of steps toward it. Which means that the Blazers should absolutely be cautious about trading any unprotected picks or swaps past 2024, and maybe 2023
If those picks or swaps bring Dame the swing-for-the-fences star he wants, that shouldn't be a concern.
that could be true....and notice I said that Portland should be cautious about trading unprotected picks past 2023, not refuse to do so
nahhh.... I think the holdup is CJ....either Philly doesn't assign much value to CJ or Olshey assigns too much
When I say "shooting," I mean shots that aren't lay-ups or dunks. I agree that he's an efficient scorer, but he can't actually shoot the ball when he's not right at the hoop. It's not just from the perimeter--he can't even shoot free throws, so he's not currently going to have an success with mid-range shots either. It's a pretty major deficit--I'd even venture to say his inability to shoot free throws well is a bigger detriment than not being able to shoot from the perimeter, since he has the skills to rack up so many free throws.
Indeed, but the scoring point guard they want is Lillard, not CJ. In trading Simmons, they're not going to say, "Well, if Lillard isn't available, let's just take the next best one Portland has" (in my opinion).
Makes no sense to get Simmons. He's useless without the ball in his hands. Wont work playing with Dame.
There is absolutely no reason besides the fact that he hasn't ever been fed the ball in the Sixers offense, that Simmons wouldn't be great at scoring at the hoop off of passes. The guy is ultra athletic, probably the second most athletic big in the game after Giannis and he finishes really well at the hoop and scores with extremely good efficiency off of post ups. On plays where Dame initiated the offense he would be a spectacular roll man in the PnR. He'd also be great as a secondary play maker when Dame gets blitzed. He is a younger, taller, longer, more athletic, better posting, slashing, cutting, dribbling and passing Draymond Green without Dray's inconsistent jumper because Ben's jumper is consistently terrible, whereas Dray's goes down but at a very inefficient rate. So yeah, I think his game would fit just fine with Dame's.
I don't know man, watching him in the playoffs, he does nothing without the ball. Doesn't move around, fight for positioning, rebound, try to make himself open, gives his defender the night off, zero effort to do anything. We're talking 4th quarter of a game seven here. They can't trust him with ball late in games cause his FT shooting sucks so he checks out. This checking out would transfer to his defensive effort if he didn't have the ball in his hands which would be for 90 percent of the game playing with Dame. I'm just not feeling the guy at all.
