The Ringer NBA Show - Breaking Down Ben Simmons's Trade Value. Plus, Is the Warriors' Success Sustainable in the Playoffs? | Weekends With Wos

Episode Date: January 17, 2022

Wos is joined by Nate Duncan of 'The Dunc'd On Podcast' and 'Hollinger & Duncan NBA Show' to discuss Ben Simmons and his trade value (2:05) before getting into whether the Warriors will be able to replicate their success this season in the playoffs (21:24). Finally, they give their quick thoughts on who the NBA MVP will be (27:01). Host: Wosny Lambre Guest: Nate Duncan Production: Carlos Chiriboga Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

I'm Derek Thompson, long-time writer with the Atlantic Magazine on tech, culture, and politics. There is a lot of noise out there, and my goal is to cut through the headlines, loud tweets, and hot takes in my new podcast, plain English. I'll talk to some of the smartest people I know to give you clear viewpoints and memorable takeaways. Plain English starts November 16th. Listen for free on Spotify or wherever you get your podcasts. And gentlemen, two weekends with Woz on the Ringer NBA podcast. I'm your host. Obviously, I'm Big Was joined today by my partner, man.

Nate Duncan of the Dunked On podcast of Hollinger and Duncan of one of the greatest food bloggers in the history of food blogs. What's going on, Nate? Hey, good to be honest. Yeah, you kind of got that late night radio DJ post cadence down on the intro. Hey, this isn't my first radio. Just know that. Nate, man, I'm excited to talk to you today because for my money, as far as people who talk about our league, man, when it comes to interesting, well-thought-out, never hot takey, always going to make you think about something and not conventional

wisdom, BS. Like, to me, what you and Danny do on Dunkton, of course, what you're doing with Hollinger. It's my favorite shit to listen to in the league, man. So I'm really excited to talk to you today, bro. Yeah, thank you. Great. Let's get to it here. All right.

So we're going to get into some warrior stuff because you are a Bay Area native. And I feel like you're a warrior's expert. But first, I want to talk to you about something else that's obviously on the minds of a lot of NBA fans and from the summer, this has been the case and it's the Ben Simmons situation in Philadelphia. What I wanted to ask you about is like, take away all of the crap that's happened, that's been said, that's gone on with the Sixers and Ben Simmons. I want to know your true opinion about Ben Simmons is the player.

What he brings to the table as an actual commodity and his contract. in like, what do you think of Ben Simmons as a guy? Because I know I'm low on Ben Simmons. I've been low on him for like three years. But I want to know how you feel about Simmons. Yeah, well, you said that I don't do hot takes, but I've been calling Ben Simmons one of the most overrated players in the NBA since probably 2018, 19, I would say,

when it started to become clear that his game was not evolving at all. and I felt like even back in the summer of 2019 that he was just so hard to fit around it. Joel said it. I think it was in training camp this year that they essentially chose Simmons over Butler. There's an understanding that those guys didn't fit that well together.

They thought that Ben Simmons, yeah, he was hanging out in the dunker spot, the whole Toronto series didn't do anything. But, no, he's going to develop into our ball handler. He and Butler both don't shoot, so those guys can't play together. So we're going to move on from Jimmy Butler. Tobias Harris is the better fit.

We're going to spend on Tobias Harris. And I felt at that point, and I think I said this at the time, that they should explore trading Simmons, particularly because he made the All-Star team, I think two years in a row at that point. And I was extremely worried that he wasn't going to develop. He was a hard fit with Embed. He's a hard fit basically with anyone. I'm sure we'll talk about in the trade process. And so it was better to potentially move him and then move forward with Butler. and Embed, they could have re-signed JJ Reddick at that point, too.

And to also, you know, on a short-term deal, of course. And to then just have that be the team. And then whatever you got for Ben Simmons, you could add that supplement around those two guys because Butler and Bede were a pretty good fit. Great. So that was my thought at the time. And then I also, I think people have a pretty accurate understanding now,

at least, of what Ben Simmons is offensively. But I also think his defense is overrated just because there's only so much that one perimeter defender can do for you. And to talk about him as a defensive player of the year, the fact he was second in defensive player of the year last year, that's one of the best perimeter defenders. That's valuable, but it's not game changing for your average defense. You know, and because I want to get into the nitty gritty of Simmons's limitations. Obviously, people talk about the shooting, and that's obvious.

But why is what he, why is his game so limiting when it comes to scaling it up for playoff offensive? Like, if this guy's going to be playing 40 minutes a game, as he's being paid like he should be doing that on this type of team, it's like, all right, you're our second best player. In a playoff series, we always play our best guys, basically 40 minutes and up a game. why is Simmons not ideal as your second highest player in the pressure cooker that ends up being the playoffs and against half-court defenses,

the best half-court defenses in the playoffs? Yeah, well, because he can't do anything. I mean, like, he literally didn't do anything in that Hawk series on the offensive end. What else do you need other than that, right? And the three-second round series that he's played, He's been completely stymied in all of those. Two of those, he wasn't even trying to do anything with the ball.

He can push it in transition. That's basically all that he gives. And maybe a little offensive rebounding. That's all that he's giving you on the offensive end in the playoffs against a good team. And so that's, I mean, he doesn't have the ball. So he can't score one-on-one and pick and roll. They got to the point where they weren't even trying to, like, post him up against smaller players because and you probably don't want to guard him

with a smaller player anyway because you can just guard him with someone who's going to hang out around the rim and mess things up for everyone else. So yeah, I mean, he just doesn't have the skills to have the ball. And then there's also the free throw shooting, which is another issue, some of the mental issue.

We're not even getting into the mental aspect of it here. We're just talking about the skill set. Right. So that exacerbates all these problems. Yeah. And, you know, we don't, we don't want to get into Ben Simmons's psyche. Like, I can't pretend to know what this man thinks about what, but we can, we can watch

a game and know that a guy is not trying to get filed and know that a guy when he does get up there, what no matter, and I know, I know my boss, Bill Simmons gets a bad rap on the internet for being body language police. But like, you can look at a guy and say he doesn't want to shoot. And then you can just look at his percentage and be like, well, I can see why. So all of the those things that you mentioned about his approach to offense is not ideal as a perimeter wing, the results speak for themselves. What has Ben Simmons's value? Like, to me, I see it as he kind of reminds me of Andrew Wiggins in a way, in a sense that he's a young guy. He got paid based off of the idea of the potential that he could be, Glenn Taylor famously said I

talk to Andrew Wiggins. He promised me he would get better. I feel like it's the same thing with Ben Simmons. Like he got a max deal. And it feels like he's not worth that money. This is Tobias Harris, which is a whole other thing. So what's his value in your mind, Nate, on the trade market? Well, I will say it's a little different than Wiggins because he is making all-star

teams and making all NBA teams. which again, I was a little skeptical. And him being a lower end all-star in the East, I was maybe okay with, for his regular season value, maybe that's where he kind of falls in there. But, but, yeah, so, I mean, he,

in theory had done more already by the time he got that extension. Then remember, he got more than that 25% max because he qualified by making an all-of-eat team to get out to 30. So that's why he's making even more than what the normal max salary would be. But to me, I've been saying for a while that his contract is a negative contract. Now, it's worth noting that he still is a good player. And so getting a good player, even if they're overpaid, sometimes that's really good for team.

And he is under contract for longer. So that's helpful for teams as well. So I could understand how some teams might say, hey, we'd still like to acquire this guy or even that they just disagree with me on whether he's overpaid for the production that he has. And certainly if you want to say, yeah, if he truly is an all-star and he truly is an all-NBA player, then yeah, no, he's not overpaid. But again, I think he's just been overrated by a lot of other people for a long time. So to me, and Sam Amick had this reporting last week that there are teams that are like, I don't know if this is really, this is a huge benefit to have

him for three more years after this one, the amount of money he's being paid. And then you also throw in, hey, what if he has? these mental issues in another place, right? And not necessarily mental issues in the sense that he just wasn't, doesn't want a player because I, he doesn't like being there. Yeah, best I can tell, he just doesn't want to have to play in Philly again.

And maybe that's the organization. Maybe it's not facing the fans, whatever, but it's been made clear it sounds like through all the reporting that he will have immediately no mental issues as soon as he gets traded, which I find, which I find really annoying, by the way.

Like, he's fucked up. Like, because this mental health. shit is real. There are a lot of people who really struggle with this. And it makes sense that you'd struggle with this as an NBA player. It's not an easy job. If you are actually going through that, yeah. He's making a mockery of the concept. He doesn't want to, he doesn't want to come back to Philly and get booed. And he doesn't want to have to face Joel Embed and Doc Rivers again. And he is

pissed off that they tried to trade him. And I think that the organ is, I understand his feeling there. but then they played this strategy so wrong to try to get him paid. And now that they finally fell back on this mental health thing, I think that's just, I mean, again, you alludes, you don't want to say exactly what's going on and someone's head. But I think with the reporting that, oh, yeah, he's going to have no problems playing somewhere else. That to me, there's a lot of person who cried wolf here.

And I'm just not, it takes away from the people who really are struggling with this type of stuff. He has mental issues, but the idea that it's like, you know, he's along the lines of someone like Kevin Love or, you know, even someone like DeMar Rosen. Right. Just does. And, and of course, you know, he's not, it's not like he's been forward with anyone about this or that he hasn't been adhering to. No, they just throwing it out there as a way to keep getting game checks. He's, and he's clearly, he's not legitimately attempting to work through it so he can return to the field. So that's obvious.

So I do want to talk about just the process of it all. all, no pun intended. I feel like there's been an extreme amount of hubris on both sides of this thing, whether it be Ben and Ben. That's what makes it so hilarious in some way. Yes. Whether it be Ben and Rich Paul and over there on that camp. And Darrell in the front office where I'm just like, you know, I always make this joke,

but it's about like Iman Shepard. I remember one time he demanded a trade from the, from the, from the, Cleveland Cavaliers. It's like, new rule. If you demand the trade, you got to be somebody that people want to trade for. You know what I mean? Like, you can't demand the trade if nobody wants you. You know, same thing happened with Kev Love when he was tired of being with the baby calves. I'm like, Kev, like, you demanded a trade, but you're vastly overpaid. Nobody's lining up to get you. So your trade demand is like weird. It's the same thing with Simmons. It's like, and I use Hardin as a counter example because he's the one that they tried to

trade for. He's the one of they try to move Ben for. And it's like, as soon as James Harding got on the market, teams were lining up. They were like, yeah, as soon as I bring this guy in my building, I know exactly what he's going to give me. I know why it's valuable. Get James Hardin in here. So when he demands a trade, his team automatically can extract value from trading James Hardin. It's obvious to all the suitors what the value is. That's not the case with you, Ben Simmons. A bunch of teams have to come up with like, all right, how does this fit? How does this make sense with my roster with a ball dominant dude or a guy who needs to be ball dominant who can't score, can't shoot all of that of this stuff?

Whatever. But, and we know about that. But I think with the Sixers, and I want to get your opinion on this, Nate, to me, the reason why they needed to get off of him is because there was no way he could suit up for the Sixers and improve his value this season. There's just no way he was going to come back after. After all the shit with Doc, after the playoffs, after all of that, that he was going to suit up and be better than he was last regular season.

So how could you think that bringing him back was going to work in your favor? Everybody understands that he's not going to look better. So we all know what the actual value is. So why are we doing this dance? And so they bring him back and Darrell comes out and says, I could do this for four years. And I'm just like, that's insane to me. And so I want to get your thoughts on the process of moving Ben and why it's been so ridiculous.

Yeah, well, I think it's because a few things do I want to respond to you there in your preamble before we hit that. I mean, I think Ben, to me, there are teams that are interested in. They just aren't teams that have a superstar to send back that Daryl is interested in. And yeah, that's just not how trades work. generally in the NBA. You trade present value, usually for future value. Ben Simmons is right now present value. And again, there's not even an understanding that any superstars have been available in trade since Ben Simmons demanded this trade.

I also got no problems with him demanding a trade because they tried to trade him. He wants to be somewhere else. And I think maybe he does. There is some idea that he just felt like he couldn't make mistakes or whatever, you know, whatever their explanation de Jure was and that he feels like he could reach his potential more somewhere else and that Jowell is kind of hurting his development, which I don't think is true because Joel is probably more versatile than any other big man that you're going to ask to hire them.

So I don't know about that. But I got no problems with him demanding the trade. There are teams that are interested in him. It's just then that for Daryl, and I'm not even sure, honestly, that Daryl has that inflated of an understanding of his value it's more just that he thinks this is his one bullet to fire

and he doesn't want to pull the trigger yet and he just want this is the one piece of salary he can match with to bring in a star that at least isn't overly negative and so and maybe he can get a little bit of something back there or he can throw in a bunch of stuff with Simmons to get another place

Because once he trades Simmons, it's really tough then. Yeah. Yeah. It's really tough then to turn that around, get the matching salary. Tobias Harris is not someone the team's going to be interested in, even at the level that they are. Talk about somebody who should be the biggest Ben Simmons fan in the history of the world. It should be Tobias Harris. People don't even talk about this guy.

And he's making damn near $40 million. Like, nobody cares. And he's making damn their $40 million on this team to be an important player. And we bring up the salary, not because it's like, oh, you're over. It's like, no, like the way the salary cap works, the percentage of the cap that you're eating up, that means that's how important to this team's success you are. So it's not to say, oh, you make it too much money. It's like you're being paid as somebody who is vital to the success of this team.

And you're not doing it, right? And so whatever, that's my advice Harris is. He's just a tough fit, too, right? I think, honestly, if he were, you mentioned Andrew Wiggins before, and I think the Wiggins all Star talk is ridiculous, but at least Andrew Wiggins, now that he's defending in Golden State, you can fit around him. He's kind of a normal player, right? He does the things that you expect at either the small Ford or the power forward position,

where he shoots threes, he defends, maybe he can score a little bit against smaller players, whereas Tobias Harris doesn't really shoot that much, and he can get hot sometimes, but he can break into some mid-range scoring against smaller players, but mostly posting up. feet, Nate. Yeah, or and then he doesn't really rebound or protect the basket or, you know, is not much of a help defender on the other end. So he's just, he's another one of these guys when you do, when you have, and Simmons is like that too, when you have a guy at a certain position who doesn't do the things that you expect

out of that position that are kind of requirements for that position, then it just messes up your whole team building elsewhere. Yeah. And so you, you mentioned that this is Darrell. He feels like this is. his only bullet and so he's treating it this way. My problem is like, even if that's like that, that is the case. It's obviously that that's the case.

You got to, I'm sorry, this is a deuce, deuce, bro. You don't got a 45 caliber bullet. This is a 22. This is a pea shooter, bro. Like, you're not killing anybody with this. So you got to wait until the target gets closer, right? I mean, even if there's a possibility, they'll never actually get within range firing that bullet now when the guy's 300 yards away with a 22 is not going to work.

So, hey, he might never get closer to you, but it would be useless to fire the bullet now. I think that's the analogy. So of all the deals that has felt like is out there for Simmons, obviously we've heard grumblins and ATL. The Sacramento thing seems to be just looming constantly. Doesn't look like, I don't want to look. I'm not missed a newsbreaker, whatever. Dame Lillard don't want to play for the Sixers.

If he did, he would have forced his way over there already and we'd be done with this conversation. Dame don't want them. That's why that hasn't happened. So get the Dame shit out of you guys' minds. That's not going down. So of the things that have been feasible, what do you think makes the most sense for the Sixers to do?

I think if they could get Harrison Barnes and Fox from Sacramento, and it's going to be a fascinating tata-tete to determine whether Deere and Fox or Ben Simmons has more value. I would still probably prefer to have Fox. Frankly, even though I know he's having a down year, he at least will shoot the ball, even if it's not going in. Again, he's just a more conventional player

who fits a little bit better. And then same thing with Barnes. Barnes can shoot the ball. He just fits right into any kind of system. He's right there, yep. Yeah. And so now you still have kind of the problem of Harris to deal with after that,

potentially as well. You know, Barnes and Harris is not like an unbelievable combo. But at least you're just getting back two good players who fit normally. You can just build a normal fucking team. And then also I think Fox is another, like he's sort of, he's still sort of maintain that Simmons-esque bullet to fire in a larger deal later. It just becomes a question of how much you have to give up to make that trade. I don't think Sacramento probably and I think would rightfully say,

hey, Barnes and Fox are worth more than Simmons. If you can get Sacramento to not agree on that, and remember Daryl's protege, Monty McNerra, is in Sacramento now, so I don't think that they're going to just, you know, they're not going to pull the wool over their eyes, Vlad A. Devots style in this deal anymore for them to really overvalue Simmons. But I think that's probably the package I'd be looking for.

Of all the players that have realistically been talked about in trade for Simmons, the idea that Fox could be available, I don't know that he is or isn't, but it's been mentioned enough that it makes you think it could have it. That he's probably the guy who has the highest upside of anyone that's been talked about in trade for Simmons. All right, so let's move on to the Warriors. Obviously, they got, they're right up there at the top of the West.

They came out like gangbusters on the back of, to me, what is just a revelatory defense. I didn't know they were going to guard people this way this year. Not me either. And everybody, I feel like rightfully so, feels like they're right there as far as who you should be taking seriously. As title contenders, Clay Thompson has come back recently. I want to know what you've thought about the Warriors this year and their ability to replicate the success in the playoffs. And then we could get into the Clay Thompson of it all.

Yeah, I think they're going to be the best playoff defense as long as everyone is healthy. And just the overall intelligence they play with. Yeah. They in Memphis get a ton of live ball turnovers. It's just guys show up in weird areas. They pressure guys in weird ways. They get there so many deflections and they're just smart. I mean, they're not even doing it with that conventional switching steam that they had back in the early dream on years.

They're really playing it more to conventional style, not doing nearly as much switching and then just counting on their ability to rotate on the back end. And so I think their defense to me, unless you're going to say that Brooklyn has all three of their guys together and they're all healthy in all seven games of a series, the Warriors defense to me is the best playoff unit on either side of the ball. Wow. Maybe Miami's defense can get there. But I just, I don't think they still don't have a Draymond on that team, even though they have a lot of good players. So that's what I'd say about the Warriors. and then their offense is kind of more of a question mark to me. I'm glad you said that.

I think people, you know, sharp people who's watching the league have noticed Steph's shooting dip, which again, like, is Steph, he's going to make shots. I don't ever question his ability to do that. But I do think it shines a glaring light on what I think the warrior's actual problem is, which I think was underrated, in the KD years in the sense that they needed that man's on-ball stuff.

They got Steph and then because because in the playoffs, everything basically breaks down to primal ISO shit. It just inevitably does every fucking year we watch it happen. And they got Steph and then they got some guys that are decent at it. And is Steph going to be able to have enough juice on its own on the ball to puncture defenses, create help situations that makes the Warriors offense passable. And I hate to reign on the parade. Clay Thompson in his state right now, maybe next year by the time he's ramped up and he's

gotten enough reps, he'll be like the type of guy that could do what he did in game six against the Raptors. That's not going to be there immediately. So Clay Thompson comes back. I wonder what their offense is going to be able to muster in the post. season because as we've seen, Nate, and you is somebody who rightfully points this out. Every playoffs, the Warriors do what they do in the regular season and then in the playoffs, it's not the same anymore.

So, and what I think is just attributed to teams more tuned to their stuff and just people make them beat them one-on-one with their guys and they haven't had those guys traditionally. So what do you think about their offense, Nate, is what I want to know. Yeah, I agree with you. It's nice to obviously have that ISO cheat code. that KD gave them. I think, though, when they were healthy with Steph and no KD in the playoffs back in the day, I think they're still pretty good.

Even against a great, all-time great Raptors defense, they still managed to score reasonably well with Steph and Clay in that series. And that was with a bunch of bums on the wing, too, just couldn't make anything in that series. You know, they're playing Alfonso McKinney 25 minutes a game. Oh, Lord. He's not even in the league anymore. and, you know, DeMarcus and, like, Looney with a broken rib and all, and all this stuff. And so, and I think if Steph and Clay can make shots, the other thing, too, is there isn't really the team in the West, unless the clippers somehow get healthy that I think is going to be able to do a lot of switching.

Like, I think you can get Steph open from three. Now, if they force him inside the arc, his ability to finish is a question of me. But I think if Steph and Clay can just hit shots. you know, they beat that Houston switching defense back in 2019. But, you know, those guys just maybe aren't quite the same players that they were back then. And they do have more depth now. They have more shooting now around those guys. You've got Wiggins who was way better than anyone else that they had back then.

Even someone like Otto Porter or Jordan Poole, like they would have been fiending for someone. They would have been beending for Damien Lee back then, who was on a two-way and was ineligible for the platchezer. who could make a shot. So the hope is that those guys, a little bit of decline from three years ago, is still going to be masked by the fact that they just have way more around them, or maybe masked by the fact that the defense

is just going to be that good. And so I think just, but they're going to play some close games and just whether they can score at the end of close games, that to me is going to determine whether these guys win a championship or not. All right, last thing before I get you out of here, I want to get your MVP,

because I think we're far enough in the season. I hate when we do MVP talk way too early. Of course, as a business, we kind of have to come up with shit to talk about. And MVP is always this big juicy steak just lying there for us. But I think we're enough into the season where we can have serious opinions about who the MVP may or may not be. Who's been your MVP so far this year, Nate? well so at the beginning of the month Danny and I still had Steph pretty comfortably

but I think he's fallen off enough now in these last two weeks that it's pretty difficult I would probably have to go with either Yokic or Yonis and those guys have played almost the exact same number of minutes probably would have to go with with Yannis I think Yonis is just a little bit better of a player more versatile but I think you could go with either of those

stuff would probably be my number three at this point. KD in there too, although now he's going to miss the next four to six weeks. So it's kind of no reason saying him because three weeks from now, then he's not going to be eligible anymore. But yeah, I think that would be. I haven't dug really deeply into the advanced numbers in the last two weeks. But I think those would be the two.

I mean, what Yoke is just doing, even to get them to 500 with just an awful team around him. They're terrible. They're terrible. They're terrible. It's horrible. And he's carrying them. I mean, we did their game for NBA League Pass against Dallas a couple weeks ago,

and they had like 26 turnovers, and it's just Campato and Rivers, and like, that's just on the guard line just for him to be able to Carpson-A-Code. And then he's made himself into a quality regular season defensive players. Well, I still have issues about his defense in the playoffs. But in the regular season, clearly, you just look at the on-off numbers. He's been very effective there, too. So, yeah, I mean, it's either. Go get your guy.

I think both those guys are neck and neck to me at this point. Absolutely. Hey, Nate, man. Thank you for doing this. Tell the people where they can find you. You know, I'm a subscriber. As soon as you went to that paywall, I said, nah, I got to get the Dunkin podcast.

I'm a subscriber. So tell the people where they can find you, man. Yeah, well, you can follow me on Twitter at Nate Duncan, MBA. And probably the thing I want to push, actually, is I just started a food podcast with my sister, who is a veteran of the beverage industry. and the food industry in Chicago, the hospitality industry. And so we just get into some takes.

Our first few episodes, we just did the five objectively best foods. Last episode was the most overrated food. So Surcha, arguing about food in your podcast player, sign up for that. There's also a YouTube channel by the same name as well. I love it. I love it, Nate. Thank you for coming on, man. We'll see you guys next Sunday.

Peace.