It is hard to say what happened to Ben Simmons.
He was never a great shooter, but there was a time he wasn’t afraid to shoot a layup or mid-range jumper. For a point guard, his free throw percentage is atrocious.
He is shooting 44% from the free throw line this year, and teams in the past have resorted to hack-a-ben to get back into games.
When the Wizards tried this a few years ago, Simmons was fed up, and here is what happened when Simmons confronted Bradley Beal about it via Yardbarker.
Ben Simmons has never been a good foul shooter, but it went downhill after a bet with Bradley Beal.
According to an Eastern Conference coach who spoke with Heavy Sports, former Wizards coach Scott Brooks was the first to try the strategy of intentionally fouling Simmons. He did the “Hack-a-Ben” in a game in 2017, sending Simmons to the foul line 24 times in the fourth quarter.
First, Tomas Satoransky fouled Simmons twice, and he missed three of four free throws. But when Beal fouled him, Simmons got mad. The coach described the scene:
“When that happened, Ben and Beal had this sort of animated conversation. Ben said, ‘I’m tired of you motherf*****s fouling me on purpose, man. I’m going to step up here and knock these two down. Five thousand dollars says I will.’ To which Beal replied, ‘You wanna make it 20?’ And then he went up and bricked one. I don’t think he said another word.”
Simmons finished the season shooting 56 percent from the line. He peaked at 62.1 percent in 2020-21, but this year he’s down to 43.9 percent on free throws.
The unnamed coach claimed that Simmons “lives in fear” of missing free throws or shooting airballs on the court. With Brooklyn, he’s down to 10.4 shots per game, and shoots just 2.5 free throws, down from the 7.2-7.5 free throws he’d averaged in his last three years with the 76ers.
Simmons will likely be out of the league once his contract is up.
Luckily for Simmons, he will leave the league with almost 200 million dollars in his pocket.