The Philadelphia 76ers will play their season opener Wednesday against the New Orleans Pelicans without Ben Simmons after the All-Star forward was booted from practice Tuesday and subsequently suspended a game for conduct detrimental to the team.
Philadelphia remains a 4.5-point favorite over the Pelicans on Tipico Sportsbook, but Simmons’ absence will require other players to fill several voids in the box score. For all the talk about Simmons’ playoff letdown of a season ago and tanking trade value, he’s still an All-Star who averages about 16 points, eight rebounds and eight assists for his career. Guessing who comes up big in his place makes for some enticing prop bet opportunities.
First, it’s important to understand Simmons’ role as the Sixers’ primary ball-handler and initiator of offense. He’s led the team in assists each of the last four seasons and there hasn’t been a consistent number two over that time. But in the 14 games he missed last season, it was apparent the offense flowed a little more through everyone, as several players saw an uptick in assists, including go-to scorer Joel Embiid.
As the person who will have the ball in his hands most, I love the over 3.5 assists for Embiid at -114 odds. It’s right around his average of 2.8 last season and just under the 3.9 he averaged in games without Simmons.
Embiid also did a lot more scoring with Simmons out, upping his 28.5 average on the season to 31.6 in those nine games he took the floor with Simmons out. He’s only getting -135 odds to hit the over on Tipico, but it pairs nicely with the assists over in a two-leg parlay.
Another player who increased his scoring average with Simmons out last season is Tyrese Maxey, who went from 8.0 ppg to 14. He played in all 14 games Simmons missed last season and had scoring outputs of 30 and 22 in the final two. Combine that with an anticipated larger role for the second-year guard and I also like his over 14.5 points at -114 odds.
Maxey likely will be the team’s de facto point guard with Simmons out, which may contribute to what feels like a high 5.5 assists line. But he’s a scorer first, so I’d take the under at -103 odds.
Lastly, it’s hard to imagine every Sixers starter goes off on the offensive end. If we’re anticipating Embiid and Maxey to exceed their typical outputs, someone has to take a step back and that player could be Tobias Harris. Harris is a steady player who can be counted on for his 17-20 points. He averaged 19.5 last season and that didn’t change much, dropping to 18.9 points in the nine games he played without Simmons. He’ll be put to work on the defensive end against a Pelicans team featuring Brandon Ingram and Jonas Valanciunas, so I like the -108 odds for him to fall under 20.5 points.
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