The Nets are expecting Ben Simmons to be a part of the team moving forward, and head coach Steve Nash says the All-Star acquired in the James Harden trade will play both point guard and center — among other positions on the floor.
Which makes it very interesting to think about what this team’s offense could look like if they veer from the iso-heavy, play-through-the-stars approach that came up empty this season in Brooklyn.
If Simmons is initiating the offense, it takes loads of pressure off Kevin Durant and Kyrie Irving’s shoulders. It became apparent this season, and especially during the playoffs with each one of Durant’s 21 turnovers in a four-game series, that Harden’s absence hurt the Nets most by removing their chief facilitator from the floor.
It also moves the stars back to their natural positions. Remember, when Durant won a championship twice with the Golden State Warriors, Stephen Curry played point, Draymond Green was a secondary facilitator, and Durant created opportunities within the flow of the offense. As for Irving, his best role has always been as a bonafide scorer while LeBron James initiated the offense on the Cleveland Cavaliers.
And remember, Simmons didn’t just play point guard in Philly, he excelled at it, ranking Top 20 in assists in each of the four seasons he played to go with his all-world defense and athletic ability to finish at the rim.
If the Nets project Simmons as the starting point guard, they don’t have to go searching for one this offseason. Instead, they can utilize their resources to build the roster with two-way, three-and-D wings who possess the size the Nets lacked this season, size that ultimately led to their undoing in a sweep by a much more physical Celtics team.
“I think he plays both [point guard and point forward],” Nash said during Wednesday’s end-of-the-season press conference at the HSS Training Facility in Industry City. “I think he’s going to handle the ball, initiate offense, particularly in transition. He’s an incredible playmaker, but we have the luxury that Ben can also be a roller, playmaker out of the pick and roll.
“He’s just such a well-rounded, versatile athlete and skilled, 6-10 player that I think it would be limiting to say, ‘Hey, you’ve got to handle the ball all the time. You have to facilitate the offense all the time.’ I think that’s what’s special about him is the varied skills he brings to the table, so yes he will facilitate and be the point guard. He will also sometimes be the center. Other times he will be the guy that’s just playing positionless basketball trying to create offense in the halfcourt.”
What the Nets can’t afford, however, is a season’s worth of Simmons floating about the court, watching Durant and Irving dribble.
That’s what the Nets offense looked like in almost 80% of the games the stars suited up together and even more so after the Harden deal. Either Durant was going for 40 or Irving was going for 50, but far too often, the offense went stagnant while the stars looked to score.
The lack of creativity made the Nets easy to scout and game plan against. With little to no wrinkles in their offense, taking Durant or Irving (or both) away rendered Brooklyn helpless.
Nash, however, said the time away from the court, coupled with the fashion with which the Nets lost and the urgency they have for winning big, gives him a new lens to view the team’s scoring attack. The coach fell short of decreeing full-scale changes to the team’s offense, but in his defense, the Nets never truly had an opportunity to implement complex offensive sets given they started the season with 10 new players on the roster, lost Irving because of his decision not to get vaccinated, lost three-quarters of the roster to health and safety protocols, then lost Durant for a month-and-a-half to an MCL sprain — all before Harden forced his way to Philadelphia in a trade.
“This [offseason] allows us an opportunity to look at [the offense] under duress,” Nash said. “Regardless of who’s available, how do we want to play? I wasn’t happy with the way we played.
“How do we want to play? How do we want to attack? Where do we want to improve? I don’t think any of us loved the way we played and want to improve, so this is an opportunity for us to look deeper at how that can come to fruition, how we can put together a style of play where regardless of the continuity, regardless of availability, we feel what we learned over the last year or two puts us in a position to be better, to play better, to take those lessons and put them onto the court and in good use.”
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