MAILBAG: How Do the Trail Blazers View Anfernee Simons?

The week of mailbags continues. You can check out part one from yesterday below if you missed it:

MAILBAG: Will Deni Avdija Stay in a Bench Role?

Part one of the latest mailbag of subscriber questions covers Deni Avdija’s role with the Trail Blazers, whether the recent wins change anything about Chauncey Billups’ future and whether Shaedon Sharpe has shown enough to pivot fully into building around him.

The Rose Garden ReportSean Highkin

Part two covers Anfernee Simons’ role and future with the Trail Blazers, early returns on Donovan Clingan’s rookie season, whether Dalano Banton is a long-term piece and what to make of Deandre Ayton’s season so far.

Let’s get into it.

What’s your read on how the front office views Ant? The local perception seems higher then nationally. Seems like we know what he is. An undersized scoring combo guard, but not a true PG. Wouldn’t it be better to give Scoot the full run with Banton as his backup so we have a better idea if we need to draft a PG this off-season?

- Colin P.

Simons is at a weird spot in his career. At 25, he should be just entering his prime, but the NBA is going away from guys like him (as you put it, undersized scoring combo guards) being valued highly. But it’s not as simple as just giving Scoot Henderson “the full run” with Dalano Banton as his backup. Should they just take Simons out of the rotation entirely to do this, or ask him to come off the bench? Henderson hasn’t been good enough for that to be viable. Trading Simons is also tough because he’s struggled for most of the season—off to the worst start of his career since he became a full-time starter, in pretty much every statistical category. How much value does he have right now?

It’s a question they’re going to have to wrestle with at some point, probably this offseason. Right now, there isn’t a clear answer that will make everybody happy.

As far as needing to find out whether they need to draft a point guard this summer—I don’t think that’s off the table in any scenario, unless they get the No. 1 pick and have the opportunity to draft Cooper Flagg. Short of Scoot becoming Ja Morant between now and the end of the season (very unlikely), they shouldn’t let him preclude them from drafting Dylan Harper or V.J. Edgecombe if they think one of them is the best player on the board.

What if neither Scoot or Ant are the point guard of the Blazers future? There is an argument that we need to keep Ant around until we have more clarity on what we have with Scoot. In my view, Ant is a hell of a scorer but his size and defense limit his value. We know what he is and it is good but not good enough to be the top 3 guy on a contender.

Second question: at what point is it reasonable to be concerned about winning too many games?

- Jonathan M.

This is the opposite viewpoint of the question above, and I think it’s a little bit closer to where things are now. If Henderson was showing signs of developing into the star they thought he’d be when they drafted him a year and a half ago, it would be an easy decision to just move Simons. But he hasn’t been and, even with Simons’ struggles to start this season, the scoring and shot creation he’s been able to provide just about every other year of his career is something the Blazers would have no fix for if he wasn’t there.

On the second point: I wouldn’t overreact to one good week and panic about the Blazers’ lottery positioning, especially with the way they’ve won some of these games. If they had six wins because Jerami Grant, who isn’t going to be here long-term, was leading the team in scoring every night and was the focal point of the offense, it would be fair to question what any of this is accomplishing. But if they’re winning a few extra games because Shaedon Sharpe is scoring 30 points on back-to-back nights, Toumani Camara is locking up Trae Young at the end of games and Donovan Clingan is going toe-to-toe with Rudy Gobert, that’s something they’ll gladly take. Those are the players they have a lot invested in organizationally and hope will eventually drive wins when they’re competing for the playoffs again. If those guys are showing this early that they can do that, that’s worth as much as a couple extra lottery balls.

Also, having the best lottery odds doesn’t guarantee anything. The last two seasons in a row, Detroit finished with the worst record in the NBA and fell back as far as they could have, to fifth, both times. This year, Atlanta won the top pick with the 10th-best odds. There will be plenty of time the rest of this season to lose as many games as they need to.

How would the coaching staff grade Donovan Clingan’s performance thus far? Is he exceeding their expectations? With his emergence, is center the position most likely to be involved in trade talks moving forward?

- Sam S.

I would say Clingan is meeting everybody’s expectations. When he was drafted, if you’d asked most people what their prediction for his rookie season would be, they would have said: He’s going to be an impactful defender right away, the offense is going to take some time, and he probably won’t be able to start or play heavy minutes until he gets used to NBA conditioning. And that’s been…pretty much exactly what’s happened.

I have no reason to think the coaching staff or front office are anything short of thrilled with what they’ve seen from Clingan thus far. He’s a worker, a good teammate and a good guy that everyone gets along with. When he’s struggled, it’s been in the ways you’d expect a rookie center to struggle, and we’ve seen glimpses of the upside already.

Is it just me, or is Banton much better than Scoot? With his length and improving shot is it crazy to think we might actually already have our starting PG of the future, and it isn’t Scoot?

- Kacy H.

You’re half right. Banton has been the Blazers’ best point guard this season—better than Henderson and better than Simons. In his time in Portland, he’s definitely proven he’s good enough with consistent playing time to stick in the NBA as a rotation player, and his unique skillset at his size makes him worth keeping around for the Blazers.

But I think it’s more than a little bit of a reach to call him the Blazers’ “starting PG of the future.” That’s a pretty important position for any playoff team (which the Blazers hope to be again in a couple of years), and most of the best teams in the league have someone a lot better than Banton at that spot.

I don’t know if Henderson is the Blazers’ long-term starting point guard. But if he’s not, then whoever is, is not currently in Portland.

What’s your take on Ayton? I’ve heard that he’s going out of his way to do things that the coaching staff is asking of him and it seems like maybe it’s at the detriment of his usual staples such as his midrange shot which seems absent.

- Benjamin L.

I would agree with that assessment, that Ayton is trying to do the right things. His reputation leaguewide is what it is, and I think he wants to change that. We’ll see how successful he is at doing that, but he’s trying. This finger injury has been a bit of a setback, but he should be back soon.

In particular, I’ve been impressed by how readily he’s embraced and supported Clingan. He would have had every reason to feel threatened or resentful when the Blazers used a top-10 pick on somebody who plays his position, but it hasn’t been that way at all. Their lockers are next to each other and they get along really well, and Ayton has been nothing but complimentary of Clingan publicly.