Picks 'n Pops: Simons on D, a major scandal, and an alien among us

Every week I gather some thoughts about the Celtics, the NBA, and beyond and dump them here. Because I’m trying to hit the over on words written on this site today.

- Anfernee Simons was okay defensively against the Sixers. I saw a guy putting in the effort and trying to do what the coaches have asked of him, so that's a positive sign. It’s not going to be perfect at first, and it’s not going to be good sometimes, but I like where he is considering his history. 

He still sometimes overreacts, and he can stick to screens a little too much. On this play, he took a long route to get around a Joel Embiid screen, which is death against a guy like Tyrese Maxey. 

The Celtics mostly want their players to chase over the top of screens, but that doesn’t mean avoiding the contact. Simons just needs to get low, take a good angle, and get around screens. 

This defensive play is everything the Celtics want from him. 

- The more I think about it, the more I feel like opening night showed how much Jaylen Brown is going to have to handle for Boston to be good. 

He has to be more of a communicator defensively when a big is up on pick-and-roll coverage. He has to handle his own offense differently, either being more aware than ever of getting his teammates involved or operating in ways he hasn’t in the past. 

He’s being pulled out of his comfort zone in so many ways. If he can accomplish half of the extra stuff the Celtics need him to do, it’ll be his best season by a mile. 

- Happy 29th birthday, Jaylen. A lot of the stuff I just mentioned would be very helpful as he begins Act 3 of his career next season. He’s going to need the mental part of his game to excel as the physical tools start to fade over the next few years. 

- Joe Mazzulla screaming at Luka Garza to get up when he had a concussion is not a great look. I know Mazzulla is big into not showing weakness and all that, but sometimes you have to give a guy the benefit of the doubt. 

Concussions are nothing to play around with. If he’d gotten hit in the head again, he’d be in a serious situation. This is where Mazzulla’s emotions get the best of him sometimes.

- The NBA gambling scandal is insane. I see two separate things.

1. Most importantly, I see the Terry Rozier accusations as the most serious. Players being able to manipulate games for gambling purposes HAS to be addressed. 

The simplest solution is to ban player props. It’s way too easy for someone to say something hurts and leave a game after five minutes to influence the bets. So far, all I’ve heard is players manipulating those for profit. Ban that and a big part of the issue is fixed. 

That doesn’t mean players won’t gamble, but the league can do more to work with them to navigate this new world. 

“I don’t think they took players into consideration, especially with the energy and the behavior that goes around gambling and how that directly correlates with players,” Brown told reporters in New York. “We don’t benefit from any of the profits or anything like that, but we’ve got to deal with a lot of the extra negativity and scrutiny behind all the gambling stuff. And then on top of that, it creates more integrity issues, etc. So I’m not sure what the answer is going forward, but definitely something that people have got to spend more time having conversations about.”

Players who manipulate the results of any game should be banned for life.

2. The Chauncey Billups accusation might be related to the case, but it’s a completely separate, and completely bonkers scenario. 

The FBI says Billups helped lure big-money gamblers to poker games rigged by the mafia, where x-ray tables, manipulated shuffling machines, and special contact lenses ensured the results. 

That's a Matt Damon movie. If even half of that is true, Billups is in deep trouble. 

- Adam Silver faces a challenge that might be bigger than the Donald Sterling scandal. The integrity of the entire league is in question. How he handles this situation could determine his future as commissioner. 

And frankly, he needs to start getting tougher. Silver is the ultimate capitalist commissioner. He’s great at finding new ways to make money, but he’s not great at the ramifications part.

- The Celtics’ in-season tournament court was unveiled today.

At least they kept the parquet. 

I’m looking forward to when they can be a bit more normal with the court and not be so over the top with the color scheme. 

- We get attached to guys when they're here, especially the end-of-the-bench guys who show some flashes like Jaden Springer. But he was traded to the Rockets and waived. He went to Utah and then was waived. Then he went to New Orleans and was just waived. 

That's five teams that have passed on a 23-year-old with real defensive skills. He just doesn’t have enough overall to stick around right now. 

- According to The Athletic, Kristaps Porzingis’ condition that limited him in the playoffs was diagnosed as “postural orthostatic tachycardia syndrome,” or POTS. Basically, it leads to an increased heart rate when standing. 

As I’ve said before, Porzingis always has the most exotic variation of what otherwise might be a common ailment. 

Hurt ankle? Nope, the rarest of ankle injuries in basketball, basically an inverted Curt Schilling. 

An illness? Nope, a rare condition where standing up revs your heart like a chainsaw. 

I hope he’s ultimately okay, but also, maybe these things are signs that he should take his many millions of dollars home to Latvia pretty soon and just live the good life. 

- Jazz fans chanted “we want Love” at the end of a blowout win over the Clippers. Kevin Love thought it was for him, but I think they're all just a little lonely and finally admitting it. 

- There's a polyamory joke to be made about that chant in Utah, but I’m not smart enough to figure it out. 

- The OKC Thunder love playing basketball so much that they’ve played two games and both went to double overtime. They're 2-0 but they’ve played two-and-a-half games worth of basketball. 

- I love talking about basketball. So much so that a little project I started about the end of the opening game turned into 45 minutes of a film session. I know it’s a lot and no one has the time for it, so I’m going to share this little bit that might have gone unnoticed towards the end of the video. 

I don’t blame Jaylen much for not rolling hard to the basket. According to Synergy, he rolled to the basket five times last season on pick-and-rolls. It’s not something he does all the time. 

However, I will say that four of those were with White, so Brown is not completely innocent here. 

- Victor Wembanyama might be the only person in the world who can execute this sequence. 

And then … What???

The only thing I hope is that Wemby stays healthy long enough to fully realize his potential. This is just the beginning. 

- It’s a little sad to see Al Horford in that uniform reacting to Steph Curry madness. 

Then again, I do see his point. 

The Warriors do look good, but they're supposed to look good in October. I want to check back in on them in January and February to see how they're holding up. They may very well be back, but they also may very well be feeling good because the season only just started. 

- The LeBron James era is about to come crashing down in Los Angeles. For the first time in his career, he’s not the focal point of the team he is on and it’s eating him up. 

The problem now is that no one is going to want the LeBron experience at his age and fragility. He’s going to have to come to grips with reality or it’s going to get ugly and sad in a hurry. 

- I’m going to do this before the Sixers play again and we get a dose of reality about Mr. Valdez Drexel Edgecombe Jr. 

He was amazing against the Celtics. He’s a premium athlete with a ton of potential, and his performance in Boston showed he is not afraid of going on the road, into a rival’s home, and making a statement. I’m so impressed that I’m going to let the two missed free throws at the end slide and say he’s having the Best Week Ever! 

- Here’s my latest podcast, if you’re bored.