Anfernee Simons was a bench player at Monteverde high school as a junior during the 2015-16 season. On a loaded team with top talents such as RJ Barrett, Silvio de Sousa, EJ Montgomery, Simi Shittu and Bruno Fernando, Simons struggled to get on the court and was a relatively anonymous name in recruiting circles. Upon completion of the season, Simons announced his transfer to Orlando’s Edgewater High School, meanwhile deciding to stay back and re-do his junior season. The following season he became the go to scorer for Edgewater and blossomed as a prospect while leading his team to a 23-9 record and an appearance in the semi-finals of the state’s strongest division. Averaging 23.8 points with a 3.2 A:TO ratio, while shooting 40% from 3-point range, Simons quickly rose up the ranks of recruiting services and was considered a consensus top 50 recruit before beginning his season at the Under Armour Association. There he further improved his profile, shooting lights out for his Team Breakdown AAU program and helping lead them to one of the better records on the travel circuit. By the end of the summer, Simons was considered top 5 in his class by some experts and was the prized recruit of Louisville’s 2018 class. Ahead of this current season, Simons elected to transfer to IMG Academy’s high powered post-grad program. There he had a strong start, further establishing himself as a consensus top 10 recruit in the class. Around the same time, the FBI college basketball scandal broke and Rick Pitino was subsequently fired from Louisville. Simons quickly de-committed, while at the same time, several draft analysts had pointed out that being a post graduate player, one year removed from his graduation day at the time, Simons would be eligible for the 2018 draft. To this day, Simons remains uncommitted to neither a school nor the NBA draft but NBA scouts can often be seen at his games and he is considered a top 30 prospect in this year’s draft class by many draft websites. Personally, I expect him to not only declare but keep his name in the draft and likely be drafted sometime in the late first round, depending on his performance at the combine.

Good film of Simons playing against high level competition is difficult to find and I think it would be fair to say that the majority of our readers haven’t seen more than one of his games in full (if that). Along with Ignacio, I’m supposed to be the high school expert at The Stepien and I’ve only seen three of his games myself. Still, I have come to trust AAU statistics a good deal and I’ve run his numbers from UAA through my database. The results weren’t particularly inspiring, as Simons came up looking like more of a top 30 prospect than a top 5 or top 10 prospect. Some of the weaknesses that are exposed in his numbers can be seen on film as well but actually watching footage of his game, one can also see why so many scouts love Simons’ upside. I’ve decided to collect as many clips as I could that were representative of Simons’ current ability, as well as his potential upsides and downsides. Below, I’ll go through a series of clips that will hopefully demonstrate his on court strengths and weaknesses as a prospect.

Starting on offense, Simons is already a fairly polished self creator with impressive ability to make jump shots in a variety of contexts. His most potent weapon is his pull up and floater game.



Going left or right, Simons is capable and comfortable going up off the dribble with a quick, consistent release and fluid mechanics. That type of skill is rare among HS players and Simons is as good as it gets in this regard at his level. Additionally he is just as comfortable hitting shots off the catch.



The mechanics on the jumper may not be ideal but they are effective, and players in his age group often need to raise their release point, which seems to be one of his main issues as well.



He has even flashed some ability to run off screens, quickly set his feet and rise on the catch.





Simons is also a high level run and jump athlete, and while that hasn’t always translated in game situations, he is starting to get better at taking advantage of his quickness and leaping ability to get to the rim and finish.



He is already a big time threat in transition and has all the tools in place to become the complete package as a scorer.





At the same time, it’s clear that at this point his lack of strength and physicality restricts him to being a two, as opposed to three, level scorer. Too often Simons settles for floaters and pull ups instead of keeping his dribble alive and trying to penetrate further. Finishing at the rim is rare for Simons, especially in half court situations.





Off the dribble he is able to create separation and has enough moves and hand-eye coordination for a positive outlook on his potential ball skills.





His fluid body movements and burst make it easy for Simons to consistently create separation and get to his spots offensively. At the same time, his ball handling is far from elite and too often he lacks control and execution on more advanced moves.





Those are the situations that make the comparisons with Markelle Fultz fall apart. This particular comparison will become more and more of a stretch as I get further into some of Simons’ weaknesses.

While he throws down some impressive dunks in open court situations and in pre-game warm ups, he clearly lacks the power to consistently finish through contact and in traffic.





His spot up and off screen shooting is good but not great. He often seems more comfortable pulling up off the dribble than with his feet set off the catch.





All of that paints the picture of someone who is a pretty developed one-on-one scorer but needs work playing off the ball. That would be fine for Simons as a prospect if he was a great passer. However, especially at his size, he has been underwhelming as a playmaker when it comes to both the numbers and film I’ve been able to gather. He seems to have shown some improvement in this as a post-grad at IMG, especially in transition situations.





Still, even there, while he shows flashes of impressive open court speed, the athletic ability isn’t always very functional, and, too often, Simons ends up settling for a pull up or runner.





By far his biggest weakness as a player and prospect is overall shot selection. Simons isn’t selfish but lacks vision and diversity as an all around playmaker.





Once he puts it on the floor for more than a few dribbles, especially in the half court, the ball is pretty much guaranteed to go up to the rim.





Look at his teammate number 2, in the left corner in the clip above. He is totally resigned to the fact that “yes, Anfernee is going to shoot it and no way am I getting the ball here”.





Even when he does make the pass, it’s often a bit late and not all that accurate, as the case is in the above clip.





That move may have been “silky smooth” but it’s not a very efficient way to play and that shows in his numbers from the AAU circuit. Simons shot less than 45% on two point field goals and had only 43 free throws compared to 197 field goal attempts, and just 21 assists and 17 steals in 352 total minutes. He did commit just 17 turnovers and that speaks to him clearly being more comfortable in a scoring role and looking for his own scoring opportunities. Yet, measuring out at 6’4 with a 6’6.5 wingspan, Simons’ physical dimensions would be much more impressive for a point guard than they are for a two.

Moving on to the defensive end, as is often the case with guards in youth competitions, there isn’t nearly as much to say here. Simons is obviously athletic and has fairly quick hands. He is able to provide ball pressure and move quickly to stay in guarding position when he is focused in on his assignment and actually gets into his defensive stance.





Every once in a while he’ll make a really athletic defensive play that leaves some hope for future development. Clearly the natural ability is there.





Unfortunately, as is so common for star offensive players in his age group, most of the time he lacks effort, proper footwork and technique on the defensive end.





He is either too upright or hunched over and gets beat more than he should. It isn’t all bleak though, as some of this could surely be fixed with the right coaching and a focus on positioning and discipline.





As you see in the clip above, the potential is clearly there. Unfortunately, the lack of awareness happens so often that it is worrying even for a high school prospect.





That’s ball watching followed by a poor close out, in two almost identical plays. Not a great sign.

Finally, even with the promise he shows in man defense, there are still questions about his thin frame. Due to a lack of strength, Simons often struggles getting over screens and isn’t able to be much of a deterrent physically.





In conclusion, the ball skills, run-jump athleticism and jump shooting of Simons are highly appealing to a relatively surface level eye test. However, I believe that more in depth analysis of his translation to higher levels of play raises plenty of questions about his ability to impact the game in a winning manner at the next level. Even if Simons is able to harvest a high percentile outcome for his prospective skill set, it is one that has historically produced players whose team success didn’t live up to their perceived value. He has the sort of upside that is probably still worthy of a top 40 selection but in the grand scheme of things, his inability to create for teammates and lack of defensive impact make it hard to project Simons as the sort of lottery talent that some have labeled him as.