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Extending Ben Simmons was a no-brainer for the Sixers, shot or no shot | David Murphy

The only way Simmons wouldn’t be worth the money is if he were a net negative on the court. In reality, he is one of the most efficient perimeter players in the NBA.

Giving Ben Simmons a max contract extension made sense on and off the court.
Giving Ben Simmons a max contract extension made sense on and off the court.Read moreSTEVEN M. FALK / Staff Photographer

Better to be thought a fool than to ridicule the wisdom of a procedural move and remove all doubt.

Maybe that sounds snide, but it’s the reality confronting anybody who takes umbrage with the five-year, $170 million contract extension that the Sixers finalized with Ben Simmons on Tuesday afternoon. In deciding to commit the maximum allowable 25 percent of their salary cap to keep their 22-year-old point guard in the fold through the 2024-25 season, Elton Brand and the ownership group decided only to do what each of the other 29 teams in the league would have done had they drafted Simmons at No. 1 overall in 2016. There aren’t many transactions at this financial scale that offer zero room for debate. But the Simmons extension is one of them.

There are a variety of reasons that this is the case. The most unassailable of them concerns the NBA’s economic structure, and, within that framework, the current composition of the Sixers’ payroll over the next four seasons. Long story short, there would have been almost no competitive advantage had the Sixers managed to sign Simmons to anything less than the full amount available to him under the current terms of the Collective Bargaining Agreement. With Joel Embiid, Tobias Harris, and Al Horford set to earn roughly 80 percent of the salary cap through the next four seasons, and with Zhaire Smith and Matisse Thybulle combining for another five to six percent, the Sixers already would have been within 15 percent of the cap before any additional salary outlay. Factor in cap holds for first-round draft picks and the automatic minimum salary holds for the remaining empty roster spots and that number shrinks to less than 10 percent. At that point, the amount of money available for the Sixers to spend on external talent would have been virtually equal to the amount they’d have using the mid-level exception, which is available to teams that are over the cap.

In other words, even if the Sixers signed Simmons to the veteran minimum, it would not have left them with any more money to spend on additional talent over the first three years of the deal than they currently have now that they’ve signed him to five years and $170 million. There’s no hocus pocus involved there. That’s just the way the NBA works. From a practical standpoint, Simmons’ Bird rights and the alignment of the contracts currently on the Sixers’ books essentially gave the team the ability to re-sign him without any significant impact on their cap flexibility, at least during the years of the deal that run concurrent with the deals signed by Embiid, Harris, Horford, and the two young rookies. Essentially, the Sixers faced a choice: Keep Simmons in the fold on a max contract, or let him walk without gaining anything meaningful in the way of resources to replace him.

There’s a little bit of loosey-goosey math involved there, but not much. Strictly from a salary cap standpoint, it would not have made sense to play hardball. Given Horford’s age and the long-term uncertainty about Embiid’s health and the decision to add Harris to the fold on close to a max deal, the Sixers have a 3-4-year window to win a title before potentially going back to the drawing board. Keeping Simmons as a part of that group was a no-brainer.

Move beyond the finances, and things get a little more subjective. It’s more than valid to question whether this group that the Sixers have assembled can contend for a title if Simmons does not expand his offensive game outside of the paint and become more of legit triple threat in the half-court offense. According to data on Basketball-Reference.com, Simmons is one of only three guards in the three-point era to fail to hit a shot from long range in his first 182 career games (playoffs included), and the only one to do so while playing at least 2,800 minutes. That would be easier to overlook if you considered him as a four man who just happens to have the ball in his hands, but the current composition of the Sixers’ rotation does not allow for that. At the moment, Josh Richardson is the closest they have to another ballhandler on the first unit.

But that’s a separate issue from whether or not Simmons is worth the money. The only way he wouldn’t be is if he were a net negative on the court. In reality, he is one of the most efficient perimeter players in the NBA, precisely because he knows what he does well and he sticks to it. His .563 effective field goal percentage ranked behind only Steph Curry and Kevin Durant among guards and wings who averaged at least 12.2 shot attempts per game. The Sixers are a much better team with him on the court than they are without him on it, just as 29 other teams would be.

Whether Simmons develops into a legitimate primary scoring option in the half court, and whether the Sixers need him to do so, are reasonable grounds for debate. It’s worth noting that plenty of players took several seasons to develop their outside shot: Blake Griffin was 14-of-63 from three-point range in his first four seasons. Trevor Ariza was 9-for-43. There are plenty of other examples.

What isn’t up for debate is the wisdom of the extension that Simmons just signed. With 160 regular-season starts in his first two seasons and an indefatigable demeanor -- only 14 active players logged more minutes in their first two seasons -- his risk of physical depreciation is as low as any player in the league. Apart from the risk inherent in any five-year contract, there is almost no downside to the deal that he just signed. This wasn’t just the right move for the Sixers. It was the only one.