Chicago Bulls: 3 reasons to trade for Ben Simmons

3. Bulls don’t have a facilitator/two-way point guard of his pedigree

While there is a potential future face of the franchise that the Bulls have in the mix right now in the rookie former North Carolina Tar Heels 6-foot-5 point guard Coby White, he doesn’t bring that same star presence to the table on both ends of the floor as someone like Simmons. The Bulls could definitely use more depth and talent at the top of the backcourt rotation, especially at the one, than they have currently.

What the Bulls are sporting now is a point guard rotation that can include some form of Tomas Satoransky, Ryan Arcidiacono, Kris Dunn, Shaquille Harrison, and White. But Harrison and Dunn tend to be in more of a hybrid two guard or wing defender at this point. Both are solid on defense, and stand at 6-foot-4 with some subpar distributing and offensive creating abilities.

Given that most of the options that the Bulls have at the point guard position are not two-way players in any net-positive sense, landing a floor general like Simmons would be crucial. Throughout his three years playing with the Sixers in the NBA thus far, Simmons has a pretty evenly split 12.6 career offensive win shares compared to 11.8 defensive win shares.

He also has a career 1.9 offensive box plus/minus rating, compared to 2.0 defensive box plus/minus rating. No current Bulls guard possesses anywhere close to that level of even split in terms of advanced metrics above zero on both ends of the floor. This would be a very nice presence to have leading the backcourt rotation.

Simmons is also a tremendous facilitator. He averaged eight rebounds per game this season, and has for his career too. His career assist rate also sits above 35.0 percent, which is much better than any current Bulls guard on the roster.