Anyone who follows the NBA by now pretty much knows that Ben Simmons can’t shoot. It’s a fact. And not only that, but he also doesn’t even try to shoot to the ball. Take a look at these numbers from last season. Out of almost a 1000 shots, only 67 were outside the paint which is staggering. All of that while having defenders nowhere near him, just inviting him to shoot. And he famously still hasn’t made a three pointer in his 2 years in the league.
So when the sixers gave him the new 5 year deal, they tried to make things a little more interesting. Let me explain. What up everybody, my name is Stefan and this is Heat Check. Let’s get into it.
Not a lot of people know this but NBA contracts can often have incentives for a player to reach, in order to unlock some bonus money.
Such is the case with this deal, which although is worth a massive 170 million dollars, it comes with a lot of extra millions for Simmons to possibly get.
So obviously 170 is guaranteed for him, but if he is able to be on an All NBA team, the money go up a lot.
And as good as he is for the sixers right now, there is only 1 way that he takes his game to the next level and to become one of the 6 best guards in the league. And that is, to develop at least some kind of jump shot.
So basically what the sixers are saying with this is that they are well aware of how good and valuable Ben Simmons is to the team, but they are eager to see him hit some outside shots, and Philadelphia is actually committed to pay for that.
And before you click away from this video thinking to yourself “he doesn’t care about the extra money he already secured the deal”, I hear you, but regardless of how things pan out for Ben, let me just tell you the craziest story of a player winning the contract bonus possibly in NBA history.
In 2017 Moe Harkless was in the middle of his 4 year 40 million dollar contract which included a clause saying that if he managed to hit 35% from the three point line, he would earn an extra half a mil that year. And you may think that this is insignificant compared to his actual contract right? But check this out:
4 games before the end of the season, Harkless found himself at 35.1% from downtown. Missing just 1 shot meant that he would go down to 34.8%. So naturally he did what any of us would do in that situation. He did not attempt a single 3 point shot for the next 4 games and thus got himself an extra 500 thousand on top of the 9 million that he was going to get for that season. So yeah, multimilioner basketball players care about money as much as me and you, I guess that’s nothing new.
Bottom line is, whether players want to improve and be better just for themselves and their legacy, or for the money, teams are out there trying to motivate them to do it by offering a large chunk of cash for that.
And in the case of Ben Simmons, 33 million if he is first team All NBA would work both ways.
For one it’s going to completely change the narrative and make him almost a hero for overcoming and improving the biggest flaw in his game while possibly taking the sixers far in the playoffs. And of course 2, it’s definitely going to buy him a whole lot of things.
That’s it for now, if you liked this video, subscribe and hit the notification bell so that you don’t miss my future in depth analysis. Talk to you in the next one. Peace out.
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