Ben Simmons Unleashed His Inner LeBron James With This Gorgeous Bounce Pass

There are plenty of people who aren’t on the Ben Simmons hype train. That’s perfectly fine, because while he was the No. 1 pick in the 2016 NBA Draft, getting on board with a rookie even though all of his professional experience has been in the Summer League is risky.

So even though Simmons oftentimes gets compared to LeBron James, it’s hard for those people to trust that, because how on earth can a rookie be compared to the best player in the world so easily? Well, because Simmons is capable of doing stuff like this. During the 76ers’ Summer League game on Saturday night against the Lakers, Simmons worked his way into the lane and looked like he was going to kick it out to one of his teammates who was sliding down into the corner for a three.

But Simmons had other ideas, as fellow Sixers 2016 draft pick Timothe Luwawu-Cabarrot cut under the hoop a second earlier. Simmons managed to pick out Luwawu-Cabarrot with a picture-perfect bounce pass that led to an easy two points. It was LeBron-esque from Simmons, who showed off his incredible court awareness and his uncanny ability to pass the basketball.

Simmons has a feel for a game and a basketball IQ that you don’t see out of guys who have been in the league for a decade, let alone a 19-year-old kid who hasn’t played in a professional game yet. It’s really, really hard to watch him do stuff like this and not get excited about his future. If he can start hitting jump shots, there’s no telling what Simmons can do in the NBA.

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