Scout X is currently a scout for an Eastern Conference NBA team. Here he offers some thoughts on who will go No. 1 in the 2016 NBA Draft, Ben Simmons or Brandon Ingram.
I’m all but sure Bryan Colangelo’s going to go with Ben Simmons. Philly doesn’t have much guard play, and they can’t turn down having a guy who likes the ball in his hands, who can put it on the floor and attack in transition. They have a glut of bigs and he’s a dynamic facilitator, so they’ll just take him.
Also, I think it’d be really tough for Bryan, with his track record with No. 1 picks, to go a little against the grain and be wrong. If Simmons turned into this LeBron-type star—this dynamic, transformational, six-foot-10 monster who you put the ball in his hands and sprinkle some bullshit around him and he can take anybody to the Finals—you look pretty bad passing on him.
Simmons isn’t a play finisher, he’s a play initiator. When the clock is down 3-2-1 and the ball finds him, that’s not a good situation for him, because now he has to catch and shoot and that’s not who he is. You want the ball in his hands off a defensive rebound and he’s pushing the other way early in the clock. He’s the guy who can create 2-on-1 situations for you, and Philly doesn’t have that. They’ve got guys who can finish plays: Nerlens Noel, who can catch and dunk at the rim; Embiid who’s going to be able to catch and dunk at the rim; Okafor who wants to catch in the block, turn and score. They need someone who can say, “Give me the ball, let me weave my way down the floor, and when a double comes, I’ll find you.”
Brandon Ingram will fall to L.A., and that’s easier for them, because now they don’t have to make the decision. Simmons is a guy they could market really easily, but I think long-term they liked Ingram’s upside a bit more and they weren’t as worried about the off-court stuff. Simmons is a little ahead of himself in terms of thinking about his brand. He thinks about his brand before the on-court product. It’s like, “Hey dude, let’s just get the shit on the court right first before we start thinking about documentaries and your shoe deal.” All that stuff works itself out.
Ingram’s going to really be good. And here’s the thing that a lot of people don’t know about him: He’s mentally tough, and you can put him in pick-and-roll and that guy can read. People haven’t seen it yet.
Jerry Stackhouse brought a team to Adidas Eurocamp, which is like the unofficial pre-draft camp for European players. They brought an under-18 USA team the last two years, when Brandon was really, really young. He’s light in the ass now, but he was super light in the ass then. But this guy could handle the ball, he could pass the ball, he could shoot the ball—he was just physically weak. Now he’s grown into his body a little bit, and you see the shit he can do. Two or three years from now, if he continues on that trajectory, he’s going to be really, really good.
A version of this story appears in the July 2016 issue of Sportsnet magazine.
