Ben Simmons and the Jumpshot Chronicles

Since his rookie year, an absurd amount of people are absolutely obsessed with talking about how Ben Simmons can’t shoot and are using it as an excuse to discredit him as if he isn’t already a phenomenal player. You’ve all heard the “shoot the ball coward” or “take a jumpshot.” These phrases will soon be a thing of the past because the day is here: Ben Simmons is taking jumpers and now the whole league is shook. It all began on Christmas Day against the Celtics, as Jimmy Butler took a horrible jumper and clanged it off the side of the backboard, causing the ball to roll right into the hands of Ben Simmons. Many were expecting him to simply drive to the hoop or hit someone on the wing for a jumper. This wasn’t the case, as Ben squared up in the face of Gordon Hayward, turned and drilled a jumper, surprising everyone who was tuned in to watch the game and all the fans at TD Garden. After that, we saw Ben take and make a fading jumpshot against Utah, we saw him take a pull up jumpshot against the Clippers and yet another jumpshot against the Mavericks this past Saturday. Coach Brett Brown has always been in favor of Ben taking and integrating more jumpers into his play style and now, it’s all coming to fruition. The hopes and dreams of every die hard Sixers fan are coming true. Slowly but surely, he will be taking and making more of those and slow but surely proving more and more people wrong about how skilled Ben Simmons is as a player.