Like a lot of players this year, Jonathon Simmons has been bad. I have noticed, and I’m sure Magic fans have noticed, but that might be it for members of the “I’m aware that J-Simms is sucking dong this season” club. Normally the NBA intelligentsia (and ignorami) love to trash players who are performing way below expectations. But not Simmons. Why not?
Reason one: no one cares at all about any player on the Magic, good or bad. Nikola Vucevic is basically a top 3 center right now and no one cares. Aaron Gordon is somehow fading into irrelevancy after his dunk contest spectacle.
Reason two: no one cared when Simmons was good, and he was legitimately good last year for the Magic, so why would they care now? He disappeared in the eyes of general NBA fans when he left San Antonio, where he was only brought up to illustrate how that team could salvage players from anywhere (in this case, from a D-League open tryout).
If he was teammates with LeBron, or Curry, or any other star, he’d be eviscerated for his badness, but people would also get really excited for a game like this where he scored 18 points and showed some signs of life. As it stands, even I am finding this video sort of dismal.