Should Jonathon Simmons start for the Orlando Magic?

The Orlando Magic finally have some roster depth and an intriguing player in Jonathon Simmons, but should he start for the team right away?

With opening tip edging ever closer, the revamped Orlando Magic have some roster decisions to make before opening night. While the rotations will take a little while to tighten and fall into some sort of rhythm, the question of who will start for this team is one that needs to be addressed now.

There are two ways you can look at this question, and neither are wrong. The first is to mix it up completely, and maybe even start rookie Jonathan Isaac. The second, more conservative route, is keeping the starting five in place that finished last season reasonably well.

That may prove difficult however, with former San Antonio Spurs reserve Jonathon Simmons now in town. The 28-year-old is the most notable name to sign with the team in a while.

Simmons was great in parts for the Spurs over the previous two seasons and he has experience of deep runs in the playoffs as well.

With that in mind, what should the team do with Simmons once the season begins? Make him a focal point early on or play him off the bench?

The reasons to start him right away are clear for all to see. Simmons would provide a spark defensively, and be a talkative leader on that end of the court. As an athletic wing player, his task would be to lock down the opponent’s best player, and it is a challenge he would relish.

Whether that’s an agile guard or a forward, Simmons can defend multiple positions, and switch onto other players seamlessly.

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Offensively he may not give you a lot (Simmons has a career average of 6.1 points per game) but there’s no reason to think his output won’t increase in this area with more touches. Simmons posted a usage rate of 18.4 percent when on the court for the Spurs over his two seasons there.

For comparison, Mario Hezonja had a rate of 18.8 in the same category last season. It’s clear Simmons will get more touches than that, and so his scoring should improve accordingly.

Simmons also upped his scoring to 10.5 points per game during the playoffs last season, more proof that when the games mean more he is locked in.

That attitude is exactly what the Magic need if they are to avoid missing the postseason for the sixth year in a row.

With all this positivity, surely starting Simmons is a no-brainer then? Even with the limited numbers above, he looks to be a cut above most players on this team.

That may be true, but there is also cause for concern in a couple of areas as well. Simmons didn’t join this team for three years, $20 million to be a high volume scorer.

He is, however, a career 32.2 percent 3-point shooter, a number that doesn’t help the Magic a lot. They shot 32.8 percent as a team last season, and that was the second-worst mark in the league, behind only the Oklahoma City Thunder.

Simmons also posted a Player Efficiency Rating of 9.9 last year. It was 11.9 the year before that. The league average PER is 15.0.

The reason why that number in particular is so worrisome is because we don’t think of Simmons as a player who fills up the box score. Rather, he is a guy who does whatever is needed to help a team win, and just generally makes them better through his effort and hustle on the court.

PER does the best it can to quantify that, and yet the numbers Simmons has posted in his short career so far have been bad. Again, to compare that number to a Magic player from last season, Simmons would have come in between C.J. Watson (9.3) and Marcus Georges-Hunt (10.2).

That is not illustrious company, and it’s a reason why Simmons may actually be better suited coming off the bench.

He’s not going to stretch the floor offensively like Terrence Ross, Evan Fournier or even Isaac, and his defensive plaudits could be more because of the system in San Antonio than we’d like to believe.

Still, signing Simmons for that money and for three years was a fantastic move. It now just becomes about utilizing his skills in the right way. He’s also on the kind of money that doesn’t demand he starts either, which is a nice position to be in.

Whereas it’s tough to watch Bismack Biyombo and his $17 million a year only play 25 minutes a night because it could be seen as a waste of money, there will be no such problem with Simmons.

Other positives to starting the player are the fact he’s a 75 percent free throw shooter, and he’s only appeared in 2,205 regular season minutes. There’s plenty of tread left on those tires, and Simmons looks like he is ready to break out and become one of the driving forces of a franchise.

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Whether it’s as a starter or off the bench we won’t know until opening night, but the fact is, there’s no wrong answer because Jonathon Simmons will likely excel in either role as a positive for this team.