Ben Simmons had a bad night last night, missing ten free throws and failing to score a point in the second half of the Sixers’ Game 5 collapse.
Opinions on Simmons vary, or so is my impression. I don’t follow the NBA very closely myself. It’s not that I don’t like the NBA—I think it’s fun and impressive and entertaining. I just have never gotten as into it as many have, to the point where I’d rather watch a baseball game in June than playoff basketball.
I say all that to say that I don’t know how good Simmons is or isn’t. But here’s where he stacked up in college in a variety of KenPom metrics during his one year at LSU (2015-16), among those qualified:
Offensive Rating: 81st percentile
Percent of Possessions Used: 96th percentile
Effective Field Goal Percentage: 84th percentile
True Shooting Percentage: 86th percentile
Offensive Rebounding Rate: 87th percentile
Defensive Rebounding Rate: 99th percentile
Assist Rate: 94th percentile
Steal Rate: 95th percentile
Fouls Drawn/40 Minutes: 99th percentile
Free Throw Rate (compared to total field goals taken): 99th percentile
2-Point Field Goal Percentage: 87th percentile
Turnover Rate, Block Rate, Free Throw Percentage, Fouls Committed/40 Minutes: Too poor to be in top quartile
His free throw percentage, for those wondering, was 67%. Better than his NBA career mark, and by enough to be worth close to 100 points over the regular seasons in his career so far, but not good. Below average in the college game that year.
Simmons was an All-American in college (first or second-team, depending on the source). He wasn’t enough to make LSU good (they didn’t wrangle up an NIT invite), but that would have been a tall task for anyone. He was asked to do a lot, and he did a lot, on both ends of the court, while also missing 98 free throws and turning the ball over with some frequency.
I don’t think there’s much here to inform you about Simmons’s NBA career, or really about last night. The free throw thing’s the most interesting piece of it, in my opinion, though I don’t know how free throw percentages generally compare between players’ college and pro careers.. But for those wondering whether Simmons was an otherworldly college player, the answer is no, though his role on that LSU team was to carry it, which may have held him back in certain areas.
