Ben Simmons Hit a Three. What's Left?

Now that the three is out of the way, this is what we need to see.

[photo: @Sixers]

Andrew Unterberger is a famous writer who invented the nickname 'Sauce Castillo' and is now writing for The Rights To Ricky Sanchez, as part of the 'If Not, Pick Will Convey As Two Second-Rounders' section of the site. You can follow Andrew on Twitter @AUGetoffmygold and can also read him at Billboard. 

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Say this for Ben Simmons: He might actually be a more effective troll than Joel Embiid, and it’s not clear if he’s even trying 1/100th as hard. 

At the Blue-and-White scrimmage on Saturday, he followed up a summer’s worth of gym scrimmage videos and action-item talk about the importance of his shooting by purposefully dribbling out of every single shooting opportunity. Then on Tuesday night, he takes exactly one three-pointer -- a long, pull-up three to finish the half and double up poor Guangzhou -- drills it, then refuses to acknowledge anything out of the ordinary has happened, even as his howling, seven-foot, MVP candidate teammate is draped all over him. He might shoot 40% on five 3PAs  a game from here. He might literally never shoot another three-pointer again as long as he lives. I’m not sure which is likelier, and I’m definitely not sure which is funnier. 

Of course, Ben’s able to death-by-smirk us over this because we’ve been so obvious in our lust for Ben Simmons Jumper Content that it’s overshadowed all other prospective on-court story lines this preseason. He could have had a leaping dunk over LeBron that forced The King to fake a three-week injury, and the first question he’d get post-game would start “So, Ben, seems like you could’ve pulled up before you took off for that slam there…” But now the seal has been broken, Ben Simmons has finally hit a three-pointer, and we can all get back to normal.

Well, The Process doesn’t do normal, and this summer has already been a little too close for comfort there. So as we purchase our Shoot a Three Coward T-Shirts to symbolically set them ablaze for appropriate catharsis, here’s eight things we can still stress about happening for the first time this season. 

1. Ben Simmons hitting a three-pointer that actually counts.

Too soon? It’s somewhat telling that I don’t think I saw a single tweet saying that Simmons’ three doesn’t mean anything until he does it in the regular season. This is the Sixers we’re talking about: The preseason is obviously hallowed hours, as consequential a bookend to the Sixers’ year as the postseason. Still, it would be nice for Ben to hit a three-pointer that Basketball-Reference was forced to account for -- if only so Jared Dudley’s grandkids couldn’t go on there in ten years and pretend like he was still a career 0-fer. 

While he’s at it, could he also maybe hit a jumper out of an Embiid pick-and-roll? Maybe a catch-and-shoot while spacing for Tobias? Sorry, sorry, you’re right -- gotta save something for next summer. 

2. Zhaire Smith getting a huge, game-saving chasedown block. 

It’s pretty clear that dude wants one of these as bad as Ben wants people to stop writing about the friggin’ jumper already. Really, a thirst-off between Zhaire Smith hunting chasedown blocks and Matisse Thybulle sniffing out backcourt interceptions would leave no survivors. But Thybulle looks like he might have three of those by halftime of Game 1, so no point getting too excited over the first one. Zhaire’s first big chasedown block will probably take a minute, though -- bound to come only after a couple close calls, until the entire WFC starts to hum with anticipation every time he crosses halfcourt in transition pursuit. Hope the first one’s on Brogdon or Lowry. 

3. Embiid scoring 50 in a game.

The 46 against the Lakers in L.A. was great, but it was a couple years ago now, and I don’t love that it’s held as his career-high since. Embiid seems to appreciate round numbers -- 60 wins, 70 games have been his off-stated goals for the season to come -- so 50 points should probably be to his liking as well. Might be tougher on a team this loaded, but if he gets in range during some cakewalk game against the Pistons or Timberwolves in February, you could see the rest of the team reflexively feeding him the ball and getting out of his way. Everyone but Bombin’ Ben Simmons, anyway -- have to tackle him before he gives up the rock. 

4. Bryan Colangelo finally getting his sympathy profile.

It’s sort of amazing he had the taste (and discretion) to to stay gone for an entire year, but now the league has moved on, the kids are all moved to college, Burnergate is in the Hall of Fame, and I think we can all agree it’s time for hear BC’s side of the story. The Athletic would do it best, the Inquirer would do it funniest, but it’ll probably end up being a first-person thing in The Players’ Tribune. (Hey, he played for Cornell in the mid-’80s.) “I was put in an impossible position, forced to choose between my personal family and my professional family,” I imagine it reading. “Before you judge me, I just want you to ask yourself: What would you have done?” 

5. Al Horford steamrolling the Celtics. 

As fun as it would have been anyway to officially put our Boston demons behind us this season -- and I don’t mean Jimmy Butler game-winner/Joel Embiid block to win in the final seconds demons-behind-us, I mean garbage time midway through the third quarter demons-behind-us -- it’ll be infinitely sweeter doing it with Boston’s own guy. Just imagine him snuffing out countless Kemba Walker dribble-probes and set-shotting a “nahhh I’m not going out there” Enes Kanter to death from beyond the arc, while a riotous WFC crowd hits ‘em with the “GOOD SHOT -- GREAT SHOT” chant and Jaylen Brown counts off one more game in his head until restricted free agency.

6. Summer League-style regular-season Kork-Popping 

Perhaps the best argument for the Sixers securing the top seed early in the season this year is to maximize the number of games afforded to Furkan Korkmaz where he’s given the ball and the green light, and permitted to shed his conscience with his warm-ups. We’ll lose a couple games to the Brooklyns and Orlandos still scrapping for playoff position, but there’ll be at least one game where Vegas Furk emerges and he makes Klay Thompson look like JaKarr Sampson. Maybe he and Marial Shayok can get into some side competitions -- first to 40 (points or field goal attempts) wins.

7. Markelle Fultz subtweeting the Magic fans and/or organization

A.K.A. “You really can’t trust NO ONE !!” Pt. 2. (Yes, Pt. 1 is still his pinned tweet.) It’s all smiles and boundless potential in Orlando now, as Magic fans are finding out all the things that, in fact, Markelle Fultz does do at a professional level. But most likely it will soon be impossible for them to ignore the things that he does at a more suboptimal level -- namely, shooting consistently, getting to the line, and generally turning offensive skill into offensive efficiency. And then will come the decreased minutes, the broken trust, the rotation questions, and ultimately, the passive-aggressive tweets. And even though Sixers fans will be overjoyed to see it happening to a fanbase that isn’t us, we’ll probably still feel the sting of it a little just the same. 

8. Joel Embiid appearing on the Ricky. 

C’mon, big man. What are we even doing here?