Trailblazers fans were kind of hoping, after Anfernee Simons’ monster game to end the season last year, that he would step in and be the third guard after Damian Lillard and CJ McCollum, the guy who could come in off the bench and reliably replace some of the midget chuck bros production by being a midget chuck bro himself.
And it’s kind of happening? Sometimes? Most of the time, not really, but sometimes, yeah? Simons looks overwhelmed on the court a lot, but when he gets his shot going, you can pretend that he’s some sort of sweet McCollum/Lillard hybrid if you squint your eyes hard enough.
I don’t know how dead Lillard is after his injury, but if he’s legitimately dead for a long period of time, that would be the perfect time for Simons to step up. The Blazers wouldn’t win any games without their star player, nor would there be any expectations of them to win games, so he could pretend it was like the season-finale from last year and just chuck away with no pressure. That’s secretly what I want from basically every role-player in the league: for them to just be able to shoot tons of shots while the stars on their teams look on from the bench sadly.
Simons’ hot shooting from this game might have resulted in a win had Carmelo Anthony not gone 1-for-15 from the field. Thanks for nothing, loser. Why can’t you go back to being retired and let the young players go 1-for-15 from the field instead?