Anfernee Simons has always strived to play the game the right way, which has made him a good fit with the Celtics
That flexibility was a nonstarter for tiny Anfernee, who would hand the ball back to the official each time he traveled. He wanted to play the right way, even when his peers were taking seven steps to the basket.
“So the ref would say, ‘You can go, you can go,’ and he just wouldn’t,” his mother, Tameka, said. “He said, ‘I can’t, I’ve got to give the ball back to you. I traveled.’ And so we would laugh about that all the time, because if he tried to keep going, my husband’s like, ‘No, that’s a turnover.’ You’ve got to give it back to him.
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“And so the refs will tell him, ‘You can run with the ball, but he will be the only one out there trying to play the game the right way.’
“I think he probably took it a little too seriously, it was too young for him.”
Such discipline and fundamentals were a fabric of building Simons into a blue-chip prospect. The Celtics sparkplug, who has emerged as a Sixth Man of the Year candidate, always has been able to put the ball in the basket; always has been considered a consummate teammate and gym rat. But his quiet demeanor, humble personality, and seven years playing in near-anonymity in Portland left many Celtics faithful scouring the internet looking for more information on the player acquired for Jrue Holiday.
What fans now see is a high-volume scorer who also has improved immensely defensively, which was considered his primary weakness.
“They don’t pick on him anymore,” Celtics coach Joe Mazzulla said about opposing offenses. “Where he’s really been the most consistent is the defensive end. The physicality on the defensive end, executing our schemes, executing our coverages. He comes in every day, wants to work, wants to play hard, wants to win. What you see is what you get. He’s come in with a great attitude and he’s happy to be here.”
“They don’t pick on him anymore,” Celtics coach Joe Mazzulla said of Anfernee Simons, who was long thought of as an inferior defender.Erin Clark/Globe Staff
Simons, 26, has blended in well in the revamped Celtics locker room. He had spent his entire career in Portland, drafted as a 19-year-old out of IMG Academy in Florida after spending a post-graduate year there, and then surprisingly finding out he was eligible for the 2018 draft.
He always has been known as an understated guy, a man of few words with a poker face for his emotions.
“For the most part, I’m pretty reserved,” he said. “When I get around my friends and I’m on the phone I talk a lot more. But I just like to get a feel for people before I say anything or say something that might offend them or say something they might not like. I like to listen and gauge what their temperament is. I just let it happen naturally.
“[In high school] I was even quieter than I am now. Even when I was 19, I was super quiet, I wasn’t even remotely personable. I wouldn’t be able to have this conversation with you that well. It would be like one-sentence answers. That’s all I had to say.”
‘All right, you got a chance.’
While Simons’s words were few, his game spoke volumes as he rose in the high school ranks in the Orlando area. Simons showed up for one final season after his senior year at Edgewater High School, fully prepared to finish at IMG and attend Louisville.
IMG produced an abundance of professional athletes, including quarterbacks J.J. McCarthy and Kellen Mond, NBA players Jonathan Isaac and Keyonte George, and soccer standouts Landon Donovan, Jozy Altidore, and Freddy Adu. Coach John Mahoney didn’t know what to expect when an 18-year-old Simons arrived, but it didn’t take long to realize the lanky shooting guard was different.
“Anfernee was special,” Mahoney said. “You could tell when you had him. Working at IMG, there’s a lot of pros there, and in other sports, not just basketball. Pro tennis players. And you see how they go about their business and they attack their jobs, and you could see some of that in the way Anfernee went about his business, too. He’s very quiet, very to himself, a reserved person, but one of the hardest-working kids we’ve had. I think that’s what separated him.”
A month into preseason workouts, Mahoney’s assistant coach mentioned that Simons had yet to lose a sprint against his teammates. And while his work ethic was unquestioned, Simons still carried a rigid personality. The coaching staff was unsure of his emotions and it took months to gain his trust.
After a difficult shooting game in a home loss, Simons slipped out of the locker room onto the practice court, and began taking jumpers in his game uniform. Mahoney went looking for his high scorer and found him shooting. No words were exchanged. Mahoney loosened his tie and just started rebounding for an hour.
Eventually, Simons said, “OK, I’m done.”
“I knew what his goal was,” Mahoney said. “Every kid when you meet with them [they say], ‘I want to be in the NBA.’ OK, it’s going to take a lot of work. Got to do things differently, got to make sacrifices. You’ve got to be disciplined.
“And you know, then you see how [Anfernee] handles business, and it’s like, ‘All right, you got a chance.’ I just didn’t think it would be that early. If he would have went to college for four years, I could see that. I would say yes, definitely he would do it, but not that quick.”
When Rick Pitino was fired at Louisville after a “pay to play” scandal in 2017, Simons decommitted and was left searching for a college. He then learned he was eligible for the 2018 NBA Draft because he was a year removed from high school.
Without telling his parents, Simons declared, with his goal working out for several teams, and if there was a first-round evaluation, he would stay. And that’s exactly what happened. Trail Blazers general manager Neil Olshey, who personally scouted Simons at IMG, took Simons with the 24th overall pick.
And the Simons family moved from Orlando to Portland.
“I was just trying to learn everything, taking everything in,” he said. “Trying to learn the way of being an adult, how to conduct yourself in the workplace. It’s not anything too casual. It’s still a workplace. Luckily my parents came out there with me my first couple of years. It was a tough adjustment, for sure. Getting acclimated to a new city. It’s cold and I’ve been in Florida my whole life, and I didn’t do well with the cold weather my first couple of years. It was definitely an adjustment, top to bottom.”
Playing with Damian Lillard and CJ McCollum as his mentors, Simons developed from a project to a starter, averaging 19.9 points in his final four seasons with the Trail Blazers, becoming a crafty scorer off the dribble and premium 3-point shooter.
Simons said he appreciated his time in Portland but appeared ready for another challenge. The Blazers are still in the midst of a rebuild and padded their roster with young draft talent. Simons, with an expiring contract, became expendable, and perhaps the change was welcome.
Anfernee Simons spent his first seven NBA seasons with the Trail Blazers.Brandon Dill/Associated Press
Simons said he badly wants to win. Mazzulla has challenged him to become a better defender, inserted him in a winning environment where his points weren’t empty and his accomplishments have led to team success.
“That’s the challenge, stepping into a new situation, new role and being able to come out and be successful ― finding your success within the new role is asked of you,” Simons said. “Maybe changing the expectations you’ve had before, whatever it’s scoring 20 points a game but it might be different now. You’ve got to change your thinking. You’re so programmed to think, if I don’t play well offensively, I didn’t have a good game.
“Now it’s changing, your mind-set. Coming into games you might not score as much but you played good defense, you made the right plays. You hit some wide-open shots and you impacted the game the best way you could. You’ve got to be able to know that I did everything I could to help the team win in the time I was out there. That’s the difference now, being satisfied with how you’re doing those things.”
The NBA trade deadline is Thursday, and Simons’s expiring contract has long been rumored to be available if it can benefit the Celtics financially and in the long term. But Simons’s play and fit into the Celtics’ culture has made him a candidate to stay long term. He said he is unconcerned about the rumors. He’s dealt with those murmurs for years. He’ll just quietly go about his job, improving as a defender, splashing buckets, and relishing the opportunity in a winning culture.
“I just want the opportunity to win,” he said. “That’s all you can ask for. Everyone wants to win a championship. But everybody might not be destined to win a championship, so you want yourself to be in the best position to win a championship.
“That’s all I want in my career, having no regrets wherever way it goes.”
The Patriots are heading to the Super Bowl. Ben Volin and Dan Shaughnessy are in Denver to break down the AFC Championship game and preview Super Bowl LX.
Gary Washburn is a Globe columnist. He can be reached at [email protected]. Follow him @GwashburnGlobe.
