NBA: In-Depth Cases For the Top 3 Candidates

#2 Simmons is a nightmare matchup

Simmons is the biggest playmaker in this league. While Giannis is a comparable size, for over half of the Bucks' game time it is Bledsoe or Brogdon running the point guard position. Simmons plays as a point guard for the entire duration that he takes the floor, and this is really bad news for whoever is his primary defender.

Simmons has deceptively good ball-handling skills. He's also 6'11", meaning that most of the time, he can take his primary defender (who's usually smaller than him) to the post region and make plays.

If opponents strategize to place a smaller, faster player on him, Simmons could either use a pick to get past his primary defender or draw double teams by driving into the paint using his physicality and then kick it out to an open teammate. If they place a defender with comparable physicality on him, most of the time Simmons will find the mismatch and feed the ball there for his teammate to exploit this difference in size in isolation play.

It's nearly always a case of picking a particular poison for opposition defenses.