Ben Simmons Shooting Threes in a Pick-Up Game Means Nothing for the NBA Season

Don’t get too excited about Ben Simmons draining a three.

We've already reached the point in the offseason where we start getting hype for no reason about seeing guys training in dimly-lit gyms playing against mostly non-NBA competition.

So when a video dropped Monday night showing 2018 Rookie of the Year Ben Simmons putting in work and shooting jump shots against some pros at a workout, people got a little excited.

If you somehow aren't aware of Simmons and his infamous shooting struggles, the long and short of it is he hasn't made a three-pointer in his NBA career and he's only got a handful of attempts that weren't heaves from halfcourt.

So to see him step up and confidently shoot the ball got some fans pumped up.

So here's the thing: this means nothing.

Simmons getting work in and appearing to test his comfort zones on the court is cool and all. And if you are a 76ers fan and the last time your team was on the court this happened, I understand why this might cause a bit of commotion.

But, you should probably put more stock into how effortlessly he attacked the rim and dunked with ease for the second half of the video instead of caring about those few jumpers.

If Simmons can shoot the ball effectively at the NBA level, we're only going to be able to tell when he starts shooting effectively in NBA games. And just because he doesn't shoot when the lights and cameras are on doesn't mean he never does it when playing basketball.

Teammates have quotes about Simmons shooting in practices and you'd have to be a complete fool to think that he just doesn't ever try to shoot, particularly in games that don't actually matter.

And more important than any of this is the fact that just because he made the shots in this setting means absolutely nothing about his prospects of making them in an NBA game. Have you heard about what Shaq would do at the free-throw line in practice? You ever seen Brian Scalabrine just demolish people who thought he was a scrub because he was usually at the end of the bench?

The dude plays basketball all the time, so don't make a big deal out of how he plays against people in a high school gym when he's training.