Would you trade John Wall & 3 - 4 1st rounders for Ben Simmons?

Am I supposed to feel bad about being optimistic about our core? Apologies, I’m a Rockets fan first.

Don’t need Simmons, we have cap space and a stream of draft picks to add to this already impressive core. We are in absolutely perfect position to create a champion with no limitations. No sense ignoring Simmons core flaw and handicapping our unlimited ceiling, we have plenty of potential stars and instead of allowing Simmons to miss FT’s and pass up open 3’s when the game is on the line, I want our young guys to miss or make those shots.

 

Forget all this other mess up thread .... and I'm not at all trying to be argumentative -

Convince me that Wall plus multiple picks for Simmons is the right move.

There's no doubt that he'd make the team better , question is , how many more games do they win adding Simmons ?


This is a really young team as constructed with Vegas predictions around ~22 wins.

According to last years standings -

Adding 10 wins to those Vegas predictions doesn't even get them into the play in , they'd still be #11 on the outside looking in.
Adding 15 wins would have them 10th in the West , the final play in team.
Adding 20 wins would have made them 8th , still in the play in.
Adding 25 wins would have put them in the 4-5 spot.
Adding 30 wins has them in the mix for home court.


We all know improvement is incremental in this league - unless Lebron joins your team .... So I really don't have the expectation that they win 40+ this year with or without Simmons but adding him does accelerate the growth curve.

The question here is what's the growth curve look like and what's the next move beyond Simmons that turns you from also ran to contender ?

Essentially , what's the return on the investment of those 3-4 first round picks Vs the alternative - organic growth and being able to add multiple mystery boxes - those mystery boxes coming in the form of multiple draft picks , free agency & potential trades of those assets ? What's your vision for the future ?

 

Rough math using WS/48 stats.

The best season Simmons has had in terms of win shares per 48 minutes, was 2019-2020 (aka Bubble season) when he had a WS/48 value of .165. Doing rough math:

Career average minutes played per game: 34 mpg
Number of minutes if he plays the entire 82 game schedule: 2788 minutes
Using the .165 WS/48 value his total Win Shares, using the best case scenario thus far in his career, over an 82 game season would be: 9.58 Win Shares.

Vegas has this team to be around 22 wins like you said. 22 wins over the course of approx. 19500 minutes available in an 82 game season for every team (give or take a couple hundred of minutes) would mean that this entire roster is expected to average .05 WS/48 across the board. Of course a player like Wood or Gordon or Tate would average higher than the league average WS/48 but you also have some duds on the team that would get far less than .05 WS/48 (for example, Lamb's WS/48 last year was .023).

If we just take the 22 wins as gospel and also take in a projected season where Simmons plays his normal amount of minutes per game, for 82 games, using the best statistical year he's had in his career, the Rockets would win around 31-32 games (22+ Simmons' projected 9.58 Win Shares). Remember, this is projecting Simmons playing the entire 82 game schedule at 34 minutes a night so any variable that drops his game totals or his minutes would impact that 31-32 win total.

But let's say Simmons helps Wood to unlock what he did in Detroit (WS/48 value of .183) because his WS/48 last year was just .100 (or league average). If we're projecting the absolute best case scenario for Wood, over an 82 game season where he plays the entire season, at 32 mpg (what he average last year in Houston), at WS/48 .183, that would yield a Win Share total of 10. Removing one of the .05 WS/48 roster spots from the 22 projected win season and replacing it with Prime Wood would get the Rockets to about 30-31 wins. If we did crude math again and add Simmons' projected total of 9.58 that would get the Rockets to 40-41 wins. While this sounds great and all keep in mind that a 10 Win Share season would have placed Wood FIFTH overall in the entire NBA last year, right behind Giannis and head of CP3, Curry, Embiid, etc. For a team to have TWO players creating at least 9.5 Wins Shares on the same team, you're looking at 2018-2019 Harden (15.2) and Capela (10.8) or Bubble Champion LeBron (9.8) and Anthony Davis (11.1). I'm not saying it's impossible but it's definitely a lot to ask of Wood given the rest of the roster, the coaching staff, etc.

 

Are there seriously, honestly, people who still want Ben Simmons on this young, rebuilding team? Seriously?

 

How are people still falling for this false “potential” of Ben Simmons?

 

Things are heating back up.

 

Would be hilarious to me if he was kicked out of practice for shooting too many 3 pointers. You want threes mfs? Ok, I’ll give you threes!

 

The next person to start a new thread about Ben Simmons needs to be shanked. Dude is one of the most overrated players of all time and now he's turning into Royce White to boot.

 

wash your mouth with soap and water son hes an allstar!

 

hahahah hope is a drug....potential is something intangible and it cant be disproved....yes indeed he does have the potential, but so does everybody else lol

 

Yes

I am always willing to give someone with potential a chance..dude is 25, doesnt fit the team and wants out.

Right now tho his price is ultra low, so a swap for Wall is all I would do...

 

hes an allstar... we need that vet experience and to teach jalen green how to be an alstar

 

Them there is fighting words. Embiid dgaf anymore. He sick of this dude and his bs lmao.

 

Showing up, being “disruptive” >>>>>>> “holding out”, not showing up.

Wanna get your ass up outta town? Don’t hold out!

 

Absolutely the type of high character guy we want around our young core! /s

 

this guy lol. I am glad we never got to this point with the Harden situation. at least he practiced hard and got into a fight with Tate

 

Some of yall really wanted to trade for this loser lmao

 

He'd be a great mentor to Jalen. Would teach him the art of getting thrown out of practice. lmfaooooo