Depth: Simmons can't hold the point guard's job Curry Harden Paul set the first place threshold

In the Philadelphia 76ers' locker room and general manager's office over the past 20 years, the star guard who has made a lot of noise is still the "answer" Aaron Iverson.

Of course, you have to be clear that Simmons' current dilemma in Philadelphia is related to many factors such as contracts, dressing room culture, and off-court, but it is not the most important. Simmons' exhortation is probably like the phrase "Flying Over the Madhouse": "You have been complaining about this place, but you have not had the courage to get out of here." Iverson's struggle stemmed from a clash of personalities and ideas, he got rid of more than a dozen coaches and eventually lost Philadelphia to The Chicks, the result was because of the ultimate imbalance between individual and team interests, but the process was not so, Philadelphia is rich in heroes, Iverson's heroism meets the needs of the times, reshaping the faith of the city. For Simmons, the result and the process are the same: what can you bring to the team while you ask for it? You haven't changed anything.

This is the fundamental reason why Simmons looks young and full of vitality, and hangs on a contract of nearly 200 million but no one cares: the personality of the horse is all floating clouds, in this ultimate era of small balls that require the ability to carry goods, a good-looking defender will not shoot, in fact, it will be ugly to eat. At the end of the day, the Philadelphia 76ers' ambition to rise in the East to spy on the championship has always been, or self-motivated, but how do you go for a defender who can't shoot but dominates the ball, and who was spoiled by coaches in college, is united and brave?

Simmons, whose actual height seems to be close to 2.10 meters, was once considered to be the successor of Magic Johnson after his debut, which is not unreasonable: with top conversion ability, in the 2020 season in the "conversion of offensive points per round" to become the top defender and even the top presence in the league, dunk performance is highly ornamental, and has first-class basket protection ability. However, none of this matters as having excellent shooting ability, and as the number one, Simmons is not without a top template in the evolution of tall defenders, not only magic Johnson, but also the typical characters jason Kidd.

Kidd started advancing from the back after holding the ball in his early years, and the long-term quest for a two-wing attack was presumably similar to what Nash later did at the peak of the Suns, and kidd wasn't a perfect defender early in his career with the Suns and Mavericks, and even had reservations about his shooting. But Kidd's three-pointers during the Nets began to evolve, thanks to Jefferson and Martin's open-ended offense, which was basically a routine that Nash followed later: Marion and Jr. could be seen as an enhanced version of Jefferson and Martin, Nash's shooting history is the top, which is why the Suns shined later, but in fact, it was Kidd who played this tactical concept before that.

In Kidd, all the strengths, weaknesses and evolutionary history of being a tall, bad shooting guard are at a glance. He even became the top wing three-point killer after finally returning to the Mavericks, shooting a career-high of 176 three-pointers in the 09-10 season, and then in the Mavericks' top space and blocking tactics, Kidd played the most important scheduling role, swinging the square and defeating the Heat in one fell swoop. Whether it's a small-range attack or a large-area raid, Kidd, as the representative of the top of the tall defender, is the person who is really approaching the magician infinitely.

However, Simmons has only shot 2 three-pointers in his entire career so far, and if you look back at the three-point list in history, Kidd even ranked 12th in history with 1988 three-pointers, and the confrontational body guard built a tree in the three-point tree, and once ranked in the top, sooner or later, he will develop a shooting shot - 17th in 1830 three-point history in The Bilups field, 1828 small steel cannons continue to rise, and the lakers' top swingman Eddie Jones (1546) in the early years, Bearded Byron Davis (1332 three-pointers) These defenders are numerous, and they are both able to rush and shoot. Simmons' alienation on the shooting end has directly hurt Philadelphia's strategic deployment and tactical execution over the past three years.

First, the tactics inside and outside Philadelphia are reversed. In the past few seasons, although Embiid is expensive as the "king of low-post singles", but the number of his three-point shots is also rising, which is completely different from the Grizzlies' emphasis on the defensive barrel lineup, when the Grizzlies' Tony Allen as a guard once topped the fifth position, but Randolph's top thickness and Gasol's top strategy, this was the Grizzlies at that time to hold the position tactics of the sunset, it did not work, dead end, and then the team was directly scattered. Philadelphia's luxurious lineup, and even the once-admired "Death Five", are basically posing, and Simmons' cliff-like decline in shooting in the past few seasons has directly pushed Philadelphia's interior line farther away. The 10-16-foot range is the no. 1 position in the positional warfare and blocking of the battlefield is the best at creating small space battles, but Simmons' shooting in this range has changed from 31.4% shooting in the 2017-2018 season to 25.7% in the 2018-2019 season, and 15.4% in the 20th season. Correspondingly, this season, the distribution of "there is no Simmons team win-loss value" has changed from +7.3 points on the field, and then with the decline of Simmons' shooting effect, it has become a loss of 1.6 points and a loss of 2.6 points.

Second, Simmons has been holding the ball for a long time but cannot create a space advantage, which is extremely harmful. Embiid's all-around still covers this hurtfulness to some extent, and Harris's three-pointers on the Pistons are justified, but this does not whitewash Simmons. Horford's time in Philadelphia was perhaps the worst of his career, as he went from an enhanced Millsapian figure to Simmons' "human stake," with three-point and 16-foot-range shots rising sharply and essentially losing his role on the inside. Philadelphia's most ingenious blocking tactics should have started with the links between the stars' inner and outer lines, but at Simmons' point, the line was directly broken. "Putting Simmons a meter away to shoot" has even become a common tactic of other teams, wrapping up early near the free throw line and interfering with Philadelphia's blocking, all because Simmons is not a threat in the process of advancing. It's like a guard in a car, after being robbed, getting out of the car and holding his head, because the gun is full of empty bullets.

In addition, the 76ers also greatly satisfied Simmons in terms of contract and personnel changes, and now it seems that Fultz is not healthy enough, otherwise Fultz can completely let Philadelphia not have to take off his pants and fart so troublesome from the contract and cost performance, and sell any top 3D that can be shot when Simmons is most valuable, Fultz and Seth, who can now shoot, are enough to cope with the needs of the entire star lineup. So from the lineup structure, Philadelphia did not wait for Simmons's transformation, all day long clamoring to change the shooting hand type and increase shooting training, and finally daydreaming. Before Simmons, it was not without the existence of this figure, the most typical and most famous, is McAvoy, debut is the peak, and later because of the crappy shooting and the league mainstream gradually drifted away, which should have become a warning card for Simmons to bypass the minefield. You see, even Rondo, who can't shoot, now has his own hand and three points, which is the trend of the times.

In the small-ball era, the real definition of the defender's benchmark is three people: Curry defines the space to shoot, Paul defines the tactical space, Harden defines the space to run, and the pass control shooting run is the hard indicator of the next golden rice bowl.

Curry has achieved the ultimate sense of space in "holding the ball end is a threat", aside from what body hair is not body hair whistle and the difference in the scale of confrontation, Curry's shooting itself is a great threat, a dialogue between Xu You and Cao Cao in "The New Three Kingdoms" is very classic, Cao Cao has no grain Xu You intercepted Cao Cao's documents to inform Yuan Shao, Yuan Shao did not believe it, and then Xu You and Cao Cao said: "You Cao Mengde are far from being so powerful, and the world is scared by your treacherous schemes." "Curry's ability to create space has even made the opponent now form a subconscious damage, thinking that he is hurting with the ball. Curry is great because in the evolution of small balls, the "shooting threat" project has been tampered with and amplified.

Paul's definition of "tactical space" is well deserved. In recent years, Paul has played the ability to turn stones into gold to the extreme, whether it is to kill the playoffs with the rebuilt Thunder, or to almost complete the miracle of winning the championship last season, Paul defines the defensive benchmark as the "soul" of the guard: control. This kind of control directly affects the execution and discipline of a team, the same stall thrown to James, Westbrook, even Curry, can not bring paul this effect, he is probably like the "Dragon Ball" in the Great Realm King God, his own combat power at the same time, but also can detonate the potential of teammates.

Harden defined the "space to run", thanks to the previous D'Antoni to Nash's set of programmed baptism, the first year of the Rockets, the German coach found Harden and let him play the number one position, before that, Ha's average of 29 points missed the league's best team to become a laughingstock, but in the following years, Harden's "three threats" were stronger than Curry Paul in some sense. There is no talk about the spiritual level here, just from the conversion of offense and running position tandem, Harden is the leader.

Of course, these three people also have something in common: they can shoot, and the range is evenly distributed, from 10 feet to outside the three-point line, they can all operate, the guard is a chess game, Curry jumps and plays, Harden runs across the mountain, and Paul plays across the mountain, each leading the way. Now on the high-quality defender, the person who can reach the top must learn from these three people, or the way, or the ability, but if you jump out of this circle and have the top body in the small ball today, you can't hold the job bowl of the number one position. About Simmons' future in Philadelphia, it is no longer important, and about the number one life and road ahead, someone who becomes a benchmark will become a negative teaching material, I hope That Simmons will not deviate, after all, he still has a long career, once he corrects his mistakes, it may become the new number one standard.