In September 2015, much of the opinion expressed on PtR stated Jonathon Simmons was a good defender and Kyle Anderson was not. Simmons could drive to the basket. SloMo was too slow and could not drive or make his own shot. Simmons was a much better 3-point shooter than Kyle. Of course, everyone agreed Anderson was the better passer, which is unlikely to ever change.

Whether these were right or wrong a year ago, the evidence from the 2015-16 season shows the opposite of many of these except passing (stayed excellent) and 3-point shooting (better but mediocre). [Mainly, I ignore numbers from 2016 Summer League although I will simply say Anderson was so much better than the competition that he looked like a man among boys. Simmons played well but not as well – for example, Kyle had a 37.5% 3P%, and Simmons 12.5%.]

Three rating systems all show overall Anderson was strikingly superior during the 2015-16 regular season based in large part on his better defense (and Simmons’ even more shockingly poor but 2well-justified defensive numbers). First let us look at the overall ratings given by Real Plus-Minus (ESPN), Box Plus-Minus (Basketball Reference), and Player-Tracking Plus-Minus (Andrew Johnson on Nylon Calculus [671+ min]).

On the three overall measures, Kyle is ranked 114, 61, and 71 – more than respectable for a backup. All three measures place Simmons no better than the marginal "replacement player" used in some statistics. For example, RPM uses the value of -2.1 for a marginal replacement player, and Simmons value was -2.76.

Overall

Essentially, Simmons defense was abysmal. Surprising some, Kyle improved his defense substantially over 2014-15 learning positioning and how to use his height and especially his long arms. Simmons desperately needs to improve his defense if he wants to stay in NBA. He appears to have the physical tools, but it continues to elude him. At 26, time is running out. (Kyle is 22.)

Defense

While not good, Simmons’ offense was better than Kyle’s by these three measures.

Offense

Neither player shot enough shots to make many of their shooting statistics reliable – Kyle 295 (37 from three) and Simmons 242 (47 from three). However, the numbers still give some indication of the status of their shooting skills and of their shot selection.

For the season, Simmons shot 38% from three. However, post-All-Star Game, Simmons had a 3P% of 30.8%, and Kyle 33.3% about Kyle’s season average. Simmons made 16.3% of his points from 3-pointers, Kyle 10.3%. Simmons made 56.2% of his points in the paint, Kyle 41.1%. Contrastingly, Kyle made 30.9% of his points on mid-range shots, Simmons 6.6%. For free throws, they were not too different – Simmons 20.8% of his points, Kyle 17.7%.

Looking further at offense, Simmons performed 3.1 drives per game attempting 1.7 FGA and scored 2.1 points on them. Kyle had 1.7 drives per game with 0.8 FGA and scoring 1.0 points. Thus, Simmons shot 43% FG% and scored 0.68 points per drive and Kyle .had 57% FG% for 0.58 points. The main difference was that Kyle passed 40.4% of the time (13.2% assist percentage) and Simmons 24.4% (5.4% AST%). Thus, while Kyle drove less, when he did he shot a higher percentage and had almost two and half times higher percentage of assists.

Overall, Anderson had a FG% of 46.8% and Simmons benefited from shots near the basket to achieve a FG% of 50.4%. These are respectable, but Kyle strongly needs to improve his 3-point shooting over 2015-16. Toward the end of the season and during Summer League my eye test said his form was becoming solid.

Non-shooting, offensive play was interesting. Concerning SloMo being slower moving on offense, on the average Kyle was slightly faster although this was average speed not burst speed.

While each had the same number of front-court touches per minute, Simmons held the ball a little longer per touch and dribbled more. Kyle triggered more out-of-bounds plays , had more rebounds (20.0% to 13.6%), and ended fewer possessions (13.6% to 18.5%) with the result that Kyle made more passes than he received. Simmons was the opposite, and the -ifference in numbers was substantial.

CONCLUSION

Belief in Anderson has gone from faith in PATFO a year ago to having a solid empirical basis. Belief in Simmons has gone from faith in PATFO to concern that having played basketball for almost two decades and having had Spurs organization coaching for three we may be seeing that it is impossible for him to unlearn what he did before on defense and learn how to play it adequately.

ANNEX