{"id":115957,"date":"2025-01-03T23:56:36","date_gmt":"2025-01-04T04:56:36","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/?p=115957"},"modified":"2025-01-03T23:56:36","modified_gmt":"2025-01-04T04:56:36","slug":"blazers-anfernee-simons-refreshing-trade-perspective","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/2025\/01\/03\/blazers-anfernee-simons-refreshing-trade-perspective\/","title":{"rendered":"Blazers’ Anfernee Simons Has Refreshing Trade Perspective"},"content":{"rendered":"

Portland Trail Blazers guard Anfernee Simons<\/a> isn’t having a good time. But with his team that’s so far behind the curve they haven’t passed go to collect their $200, it’s no wonder he doesn’t have a monopoly over his emotions.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s been hard as ****,\u2019\u2019 he tells The Athletic’s Jason Quick. \u201cI be having my bad days. I\u2019m like anybody else. I call them my \u2018human days,\u2019 when I let things get to me a little bit<\/a>. Obviously, it has had an effect on my game. That\u2019s what I\u2019m trying to get out of.\u2019\u2019<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s hard to explain it; some things just don\u2019t feel right,\u2019\u2019 Simons continues. \u201cIt could be a bit of everything. I\u2019m not going to point out one thing. Ultimately, I gotta do what I gotta do, and get out of my funk and figure out ways to overcome it. Ultimately, this is a test of faith, and a test of mental toughness and what I\u2019m going to do to get myself out of this feeling.\u2019\u2019<\/p>\n

Blazers’ Anfernee Simons Has Refreshing Trade Perspective<\/h2>\n

For as bad as Simons feels though, he won’t request a trade. In an era in which players seem to be asking for trades every few months, his perspective is refreshing.<\/p>\n

\u201cI can say how I feel, but I don\u2019t think I\u2019m in that position,\u2019\u2019 he explains. \u201cThere\u2019s only a few players who can go in there and make (demands). I don\u2019t think that\u2019s my job. My job is to go out and play. If it\u2019s something that serious, I would let my agent take care of it. But you think about what you want out of your career, and stuff like that, and I figure it\u2019s going to happen when it\u2019s supposed to. I\u2019m not going to make any irrational decisions on stuff like that.\u2019\u2019<\/p>\n

The mental makeup that the Florida native brought with him to Portland<\/a> was described as such by Kenny Gillion, his former AAU coach:<\/p>\n

“When he plays against the top players, he has a killer mentality. If he’s not winning, he’s not happy. He equates success with winning. … He’s going to try to outperform the guy in front of him while his team is winning.”<\/p>\n

With that in mind, being on a team that’s constantly losing tends to be draining for many players. Franchises that are so used to losing that it seems ingrained in the team culture — like the Washington Wizards, for instance –have a way of leaving them disenchanted with the game, not just disillusioned. However, for players who genuinely love high competition<\/em> and winning<\/em>, it’s probably like a never-ending nightmare.<\/p>\n

You Have One Job<\/h3>\n

So, as far as what’s ailing Simons and how to fix it, the answer is as clear as day.<\/p>\n

Being on a team that’s 32-83 since Damian Lillard<\/a> left in 2023, posting a .278 win percentage, is getting to him. That being said, as the Blazers are 158-191 when Simons plays (a .453 win percentage), he’s used to more success than he’s had over the past couple of seasons. There’s an argument to made that if Simons was playing better, their record would look better, with or without Lillard. Nonetheless, only a handful of stars can pull teams up from rock bottom all by their lonesome.<\/p>\n

Simons may become that type of player one day but he isn’t right now.<\/p>\n

As a result, it falls on Portland to put a better team around him. Right now, they just seem satisfied with mediocrity, more or less. The former No. 24 pick may be right to say he hasn’t earned the right to request a trade. Perhaps he doesn’t even feel as if he can complain about the Blazers’ acting as if all they need is time<\/a>. However, the Blazers front office should have enough pride to put together a more competitive roster<\/a> without<\/em> him saying so.<\/p>\n

If not, then his agent should make the request for him, for the sake of Simons’ sanity.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Portland Trail Blazers guard Anfernee Simons isn’t having a good time. But with his team that’s so far behind the curve they haven’t passed go to collect their $200, it’s no wonder he doesn’t have a monopoly over his emotions. \u201cIt\u2019s been hard as ****,\u2019\u2019 he tells The Athletic’s Jason Quick. \u201cI be having my […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5008,"featured_media":115973,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_lmt_disableupdate":"no","_lmt_disable":"","sfio_featured_image":false,"sfio_embed_code":"","_ef_editorial_meta_date_first-draft-date":"","_ef_editorial_meta_paragraph_assignment":"","_ef_editorial_meta_checkbox_needs-photo":"","_ef_editorial_meta_number_word-count":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[23,1608,62,3,4721],"tags":[1559,187,4774],"class_list":["post-115957","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-trailblazers","category-basketball","category-nba","category-news","category-trade-rumors","tag-anfernee-simons","tag-damian-lillard","tag-rumors"],"modified_by":"Quenton S Albertie","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/115957","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5008"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=115957"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/115957\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":115974,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/115957\/revisions\/115974"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/115973"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=115957"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=115957"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=115957"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}