Philly's big role for Simmons

Jun 24, 2016 - 5:15 AM Philadelphia has had Rocky Balboa, Wilt Chamberlain, Julius "Dr J" Irving and Allen Iverson as hometown heroes.

Now they have Ben Simmons, the Australian teenager from Melbourne.

The Philadelphia 76ers, the worst team in the NBA, used the first pick of the NBA Draft in New York on Thursday to select Simmons, a 19-year-old 208cm, 111kg gazelle who can play any position on a basketball court.

He is the franchise player they will look to structure their team rebuild around.

"When we all look at what Ben brings to the table in regards to size, skill, and versatility, it is exciting," said 76ers coach Brett Brown.

"It goes to a new level for me because of the knowledge I have of his background and the respect I have of how he was raised.

"From a package standpoint when you weigh it all up, this is a fantastic night for 76ers basketball."

NBA teams go to great lengths to delve into the life histories of potential recruits, hiring private investigators, sending out scouts and assistants to home towns to talk to high school teachers, coaches and locals.

Teams have a lot to lose, with the 76ers not only paying Simmons more than $US15 million the next three years but desperately needing the right player to revive the once great franchise.

Brown, the former Australian Boomers coach, had an odd advantage because he has known Simmons since the day he was born in Fitzroy.

Brown was an assistant under the great Lindsay Gaze at the Melbourne Tigers in 1989 when the team took a gamble on 205cm Bronx-born bruiser Dave Simmons as one of its US imports.

Dave fell in love with the Tigers' head cheerleader Julie, they married, and baby Ben, the 76ers saviour, was born.

Brown eventually moved back to the US where he was a San Antonio Spurs assistant under Gregg Popovich before taking over the difficult job of reviving the 76ers.

Rave reviews about Dave's kid kept finding their way to Brown.

"I have such a close connection with Australia that coaches who worked with him and I've known for 30 years, his junior coaches who groomed him and raised him in a basketball environment, I would talk to them and they would talk about his gifts," Brown said.

The enviable problem for Brown is to decide on how he will use Simmons, who has the size to play power forward and the skills to be a point guard.

He said it would be "borderline cruel" to use Simmons as a point guard, a position he rates as the most difficult for an NBA rookie to grasp.

But, don't count it out.

Simmons has been compared to the greatest big man point guard, Magic Johnson, and Brown knows when his young Aussie is ready he might just live up to that comparison.

"Sometimes in my wildest dreams I envisage him as a point guard," Brown said.

Source: AAP