September 09, 2024
Bill Streicher/Imagn Images
Ben Simmons gave the Sixers one of the best rookie seasons in NBA history.
Happy Monday! With each time I type those two words, we are seven days closer to the start of the 2024-25 Sixers season. With the team's roster set in place and next to no news expected for the next few weeks, this is as good of a time as any to take a look in the rearview mirror at some impressive past seasons by Sixers players.
Enjoy a nostalgic edition of 5 Sixers thoughts:
It is stunning what has become of Simmons' career since his public holdout from the Sixers and ensuing trade to the Brooklyn Nets. Not only has he become persona non grata in Philadelphia, but he is rarely capable of staying on the floor -- and when he does play, his impact is limited.
This is all such a shock because of just how transcendent Simmons was as a young player. He posted one of the single greatest rookie seasons in NBA history in 2017-18, helping lead the Sixers to a 52-win season and playoff series victory.
Simmons played in 81 of 82 contests as a rookie, averaging 15.8 points, 8.1 rebounds and 8.2 assists per game while quickly blossoming into a positive-impact defender at multiple positions. His inability to shoot from outside the paint was mollified by his ability to pressure the rim and, more importantly, his brilliant court vision and passing chops. Simmons' skills as a playmaker would have been incredibly impressive had he been 6-foot-3; instead he looked Magic Johnson-esque at 6-foot-10.
Each of Ben Simmons' 15 AST from his 9th career triple-double (11 PTS, 15 AST, 12 REB)! #HereTheyCome pic.twitter.com/IWE5NRrkoy
— NBA (@NBA) March 20, 2018
Simmons' reputation in Philadelphia is built on his infamous playoff struggles. And there is no question that the former No. 1 overall pick frequently failed to rise to the occasion. Ironically, though, his first ever playoff series was by far his best. Simmons completely dismantled the Miami Heat in the first round of the playoffs in his rookie year, and was without question the best player on the floor for the entirety of the series.
In five games, Simmons averaged 18.2 points, 10.6 rebounds, 9.0 assists and 2.4 steals per game. At 21 years old, he took complete control of a playoff series.
Let's just forget about what happened in the next series (and just about each one after that) today.
Speaking of players who arguably peaked as rookies, Thybulle was ridiculously good in his first NBA season. Thybulle's defensive instincts that made him such a dominant weapon in college only grew as he adjusted to a much more challenging environment, and an out-of-body experience as a three-point shooter for much of the first half of the season helped make him an elite role player right off the bat.
Thybulle's defense might have gotten better in his second and third NBA seasons -- at least, that is what the numbers say -- but the reason he peaked as a rookie is because of his shooting from beyond the arc. It was obviously not sustainable, but it made for a hell of a show.
In his first 30 NBA games, Thybulle shot 46.3 percent from three-point range while instantly performing like one of the single best perimeter defenders in the world. On a 2019-20 Sixers team which had massive expectations and turned into a miserable group to watch, Thybulle was one of its only shining lights and beacons of hope.
Thybulle's development hit a significant buffer soon after, unfortunately, because he just never developed any sort of real offensive utility after his hot start as a long-range marksman proved to be a flash in the pan.
When JJ Redick left the Sixers, it was unclear if anybody would ever be able to replicate the lethal two-man game Redick developed with Joel Embiid again. Then came Curry, who the team acquired in a grand slam of a trade.
After trading for Curry, Sixers President of Basketball Operations Daryl Morey called his new starting shooting guard one of the single best shooters in the history of the NBA -- and he was not wrong. Curry did everything the Sixers could have reasonably asked for him, particularly during his first season with the team in 2020-21, the only full campaign he ended up spending in Philadelphia.Â
Curry helped tremendously as the Sixers sought to improve their floor spacing around Embiid and Simmons, and ended up shooting an absolutely ridiculous 45 percent on three-point tries in the regular season. What sometimes gets lost in the shuffle, though, is how well Curry performed during a playoff run that became better known for Simmons passing up a wide open dunk attempt.
After averaging 12.5 points per game in the regular season, Curry scored 18.8 points per game in the postseason, shooting 57.8 percent from the field and 50.6 percent from three-point range on 6.8 attempts per game. It was the best stretch of basketball Curry had ever played, and if Simmons and others had not crumbled under the pressure, it would have netted the Sixers their first Eastern Conference Finals appearance in two decades.
Seth Curry stopped on a dime đź‘€ pic.twitter.com/EkIANdb8dh
— NBA on ESPN (@ESPNNBA) June 3, 2021
Curry was arguably having a better season the following year, but ended up being traded to Brooklyn alongside Simmons and Andre Drummond, with the Sixers landing James Harden.
Milton emerged as a quality rotation guard -- a starting-caliber player in a pinch, even -- during the entirety of the 2019-20 season. But I really want to focus on a three-game stretch here. The world was two weeks away from shutting down due to a pandemic, but for four glorious days, Milton was the best shooter to ever live.
From Feb. 26 to March 1 of 2020, Milton was unconscious from beyond the arc. He made 16 of his 20 long-range tries -- yes, that is good for a three-point percentage of 80.0 -- and it culminated in one of the most stunning individual performances in Sixers history.
In a nationally-televised game against the Los Angeles Clippers, with Embiid and Simmons both sidelined due to injuries, Milton went absolutely nuts. He scored 39 points on 14-20 shooting from the field -- including 7-9 from three-point range -- and single-handedly kept the Sixers in the game until the end.
Whenever I see Shake Milton playing against the Clippers, I can’t help but think of one of my favorite performances of the last several years pic.twitter.com/4jM7ybezgm
— Adam Aaronson (@SixersAdam) January 18, 2023
What was just as shocking as his performance was how Clippers head coach Doc Rivers was treating him by the end of the game. Someone who had never watched the Sixers before would have thought Milton was a future first-ballot Hall of Fame inductee. Rivers put bulldog guard defender Patrick Beverley on Milton; when that assignment did not work he went to Paul George. George could not stop Milton either, so Rivers asked Kawhi Leonard to guard Shake Milton. By the end of the game, Rivers was throwing every trick in the book at Milton just to escape with a win against a short-handed Sixers team in March.
THE CLIPPERS DOUBLE-TEAMED SHAKE MILTON AT HALF COURT WHAT IS GOING ON
— Adam Aaronson (@SixersAdam) March 1, 2020
Ennis made his way to Philadelphia in February of 2019 at the trade deadline when the Houston Rockets -- then run by Morey -- were determined to get under the luxury tax threshold. Desperate for an addition to their wing rotation, the Sixers took a shot in the dark on Ennis at little to no cost (the Sixers gave Houston the right to swap distant second-round picks). And the Sixers would not have ended up just one point away from defeating the 2018-19 Raptors, who went onto the NBA Finals and won it all, had they not added Ennis.
Aside from his uncanny ability to crash the glass and revive possessions or collect put-back baskets as an offensive rebounder, Ennis provided a level of competence that nobody else on the roster could offer. Rookie Zhaire Smith was too green. Trade acquisition Jonathon Simmons was unplayable in the regular season, let alone the playoffs. Time and time again, Sixers head coach Brett Brown could rely on Ennis to defend reasonably well and knock down enough open spot-up threes.Â
It is a remarkable testament to how much talent this team had that it was one of the three or four most dangerous groups in the entire NBA despite its players learning how to coexist on the fly and only having seven NBA-caliber pieces on the entire roster by the end of the season. Ennis was a critical part of that, even if his Sixers tenure did not end up lasting much longer.
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