Extreme Philly Sports Forum

"Someone who can win a game themselves"  put Ben on a bad team where he's the best player and they win maybe 20 games a season.

He can't even win here when Joel's out.

Put Giannis, Kawhi, LeBron, etc on any ole bum squad and it's instantly a 50 game winner. The gap is VAST.

Ben is a complimentary piece for a great team, purely a support player. You're not putting so much as a paperweight on his back. He's only as good as the guys you put around him, that's not a superstar basketball player.

Joel wins games by himself.

I never regarded our 16-0 record at the end of 2017 season, with Joel recovering from his TKO courtesy of Fultz, as fully legit.

But 16-0 is 16-0.

I think by season's end we're gonna look pretty good in games that Ben is playing and Joel is sitting out.  Ben thrives in a "team" setting, and right now our guys are still figuring out what Doc wants.

I posted this video more for guys like Shake and Maxey.  We have to honestly ask ourselves "what are these guys good at besides scoring, and will that ever actually change?".

Analytically Shake's been very good on defense.  But it's tough to say he excels at it.  Maxey looks like he'll be really good on defense, but again, not ready to say he excels at it.

That was definitely a crazy streak but has proven to be an EXTREME outlier and a distant memory. Every time Joel is out we 100% bank on a loss and it's been that way for years. I won't even watch the game once I see the report that he's out.

But also a few other problems here, I think the way their point was laid out was done really poorly and is certainly poorly applied to Ben, let me explain.

Firstly I think it's implied that you have to be ELITE at whatever number of those things to be considered a superstar. Honestly I don't consider Ben elite at anything but defense. Passing, too many inaccurate passes and too many bad decisions. Much of simple bulk assist numbers can merely be a result of how much you have the ball (why Westbrook always averages 10 assists) and how good your teammates are. Ben is a good passer but I wouldn't consider it elite. Neither his rebounding, I mean 7-8 a game is elite FOR A PG I guess, but not elite rebounding among all, and frankly its just a matter of him being taller than his peers, it's not like he's a bully down low who just outphysicals forwards and centers, quite the contrary, when he goes down with the real big boys you quickly find out why he's a PG.

Also just overall it's too simple of a view, and too low of a bar. Not to mention the point theyre trying to make pretty much contradicts itself. The basis point they were trying to make is scoring and scoring alone doesn't make you a superstar, you have to be WELL ROUNDED, then go on to say if youre good at 2 things and SUCK at 4 things you're a star? Lmao??

Thats the thing like whats the floor of those lesser aspects? If you average 2/10/10 with 8 turnovers while shooting 10% from the field and 20% from the line, youre a star? Lol in what world?

There are bench and role players in this league who are great at 2 of those 6 things. The whole point or at least the way it was laid out is very very flawed logic.

That was definitely a crazy streak but has proven to be an EXTREME outlier and a distant memory. Every time Joel is out we 100% bank on a loss and it's been that way for years. I won't even watch the game once I see the report that he's out.

But also a few other problems here, I think the way their point was laid out was done really poorly and is certainly poorly applied to Ben, let me explain.

Firstly I think it's implied that you have to be ELITE at whatever number of those things to be considered a superstar. Honestly I don't consider Ben elite at anything but defense. Passing, too many inaccurate passes and too many bad decisions. Much of simple bulk assist numbers can merely be a result of how much you have the ball (why Westbrook always averages 10 assists) and how good your teammates are. Ben is a good passer but I wouldn't consider it elite. Neither his rebounding, I mean 7-8 a game is elite FOR A PG I guess, but not elite rebounding among all, and frankly its just a matter of him being taller than his peers, it's not like he's a bully down low who just outphysicals forwards and centers, quite the contrary, when he goes down with the real big boys you quickly find out why he's a PG.

Also just overall it's too simple of a view, and too low of a bar. Not to mention the point theyre trying to make pretty much contradicts itself. The basis point they were trying to make is scoring and scoring alone doesn't make you a superstar, you have to be WELL ROUNDED, then go on to say if youre good at 2 things and SUCK at 4 things you're a star? Lmao??

Thats the thing like whats the floor of those lesser aspects? If you average 2/10/10 with 8 turnovers while shooting 10% from the field and 20% from the line, youre a star? Lol in what world?

There are bench and role players in this league who are great at 2 of those 6 things. The whole point or at least the way it was laid out is very very flawed logic.

I see Ben as an "elite" passer.  I think fans undersell what he does with his passes, given how quickly he passes the ball after getting it.  To me it's akin to a pocket passer carving up a defense with a bunch of short timing passes.  Whereas a James Harden assist is akin to a QB who dances around the pocket until a play breaks down and then rifles it downfield for a big gain.

Both can be regarded as "elite" passing.  But I personally like Ben's style better.  I get a feeling Ben's teammates feel the same, even if they do get frustrated with his inability to score points himself.

Ben right now is "elite" in defense and passing.  I'm on the fence in terms of rebounding.  He plays a lot of defense on the perimeter, so it's hard for him to rack up the 10+ rebounds a traditional big would average.

I just happened to read this today on ESPN  (Im sure others will too) and I think it applies.

From Zach Lowe's 10 Things I like column.

"The Sixers are scoring 1.19 points per possession when Milton shoots out of a drive, or passes to a teammate who fires -- 17th among 156 guys who have recorded at least 40 drives, per Second Spectrum. (The top two on that list: Seth Curry and Embiid.) That would have ranked third last season."

Zach was merely trying to praise Shake but from that stat you can extrapolate how unimportant Simmons is on offense. Our guys are scoring wether its Seth, Joel or Shake driving. Ben isn't making that engine run.

To me our team ratings with Embiid+Ben on the court versus Embiid-Ben is more telling.

Our offensive rating stays about the same, but our defensive rating plummets.

And how confident are we right now that Shake can maintain this torrid scoring efficiency he has off his own dribble?  Right now it seems like he never misses when he shoots it off his own dribble.  Ever.

And Ben right now is having career lows in terms of shooting%.

I've never been a fan of Lowe's bball analysis.  I've seen Perkins almost curse Zach out after hearing his bball takes.  In fact I'm pretty sure ESPN won't let those two do bits together even again lol!

To me our team ratings with Embiid+Ben on the court versus Embiid-Ben is more telling.

Our offensive rating stays about the same, but our defensive rating plummets.

And how confident are we right now that Shake can maintain this torrid scoring efficiency he has off his own dribble?  Right now it seems like he never misses when he shoots it off his own dribble.  Ever.

And Ben right now is having career lows in terms of shooting%.

I've never been a fan of Lowe's bball analysis.  I've seen Perkins almost curse Zach out after hearing his bball takes.  In fact I'm pretty sure ESPN won't let those two do bits together even again lol!

To be fair you don't compare your starting PG to your backup PG, you compare him to other starting PGs.

As you know im a Giants fan and giants fans had me cracking up this year because they thought our offense not playing well under COLT MCCOY proves that Daniel Jones is just amazing and MVP lmao

Yet when Ben is on the bench and Embiid on the court (almost always with Shake), our offensive rating doesn't suffer.

Right, So he brings nothing to the table on that side of the ball we can't already get from cheaper more normal offensive player.
Which was my point about his assists not being that important.

Can you sort those stats to show half court proficiency? Bet the reason Ben/Embiid  is roughly equivalent to Embiid/Shake is because of how much Ben's getting out on the break - which will take a hit in the playoffs.

I bet you could replace Ben with Maxey and lose very little on the offensive end. (but no doubt the defense would take hit)

It's way too early to draw any conclusion from 5 man lineups but it will be fun to see how the starting lineups shake out offensively as injuries inevitably lead to slight changes.

Can you sort those stats to show half court proficiency? Bet the reason Ben/Embiid  is roughly equivalent to Embiid/Shake is because of how much Ben's getting out on the break - which will take a hit in the playoffs.

I had to use pen and paper just to figure out what the ratings are for Embiid when Ben is on the bench.  Your's a tough ask, at least for me lol!