Getty Image / Mike Stobe
Brooklyn Nets head coach Jacque Vaughn has had to do a whole lot of adjusting this season.
In the first half of the year, he went through stretches where the team was either missing Kyrie Irving or Kevin Durant.
Then both of those stars got traded right before the NBA’s deadline.
All the while, he has been trying to figure out how to get the most out of Ben Simmons, who the Nets acquired at last year’s deadline but didn’t see in action until this year.
Now the Nets have a whole new cast around Simmons, who the Nets need to get strong play out of to be able to continue to compete after losing their stars.
Unfortunately, it seems Vaughn is having a tough time figuring out who to put on the court with Simmons to get the best out of him.
Vaughn revealed as much when responding to a question about Simmons’ playing time in last night’s loss to the Knicks.
Jacque Vaughn’s entire, and very interesting, answer on the challenges ahead for Brooklyn in trying to figure out how best ways to use Ben Simmons moving forward. pic.twitter.com/AcD1zzY9BH
— Tim Bontemps (@TimBontemps) February 14, 2023
Here is what he had to say via ESPN’s Tim Bontemps:
It’s going to be some work that we have to do. Because you just take a look at what the lineups could potentially look like. You put another big next to Ben, then you got to figure out what the spacing is around him. Then, if you put another playmaker next to him, then you got to figure out what Ben looks like without the basketball. Then if you go small with Ben, then you have to figure out can you rebound enough with him? So the challenges are ahead of us. We’ll look them head on. We’ll figure it out. We have the personnel to figure it out. Whether it is me mixing and matching throughout different pieces of the game, and allowing him to have a group and run with a group, that part we’ll figure out, but you see the challenges that lie ahead.
It doesn’t bode well for a team when they have a player on a rookie max extension and they can’t figure out who to put on the court with him.
Unfortunately, that seems to just be the reality of having Ben Simmons on your team right now. His inability to shoot the ball is simply always going to be an issue.
Right now, there isn’t really anything the Brooklyn Nets can do to fix it, but maybe they’ll be able to trade Simmons or find players to fit around him during the offseason.