But don’t get it twisted: On the court, Anfernee Simons is anything but bashful. (“You gotta be sure, you gotta be aggressive, you gotta do what you do,” Dame recalls telling him.) This season, his fifth in the NBA, he is leveling up. He’s a starter, averaging 21.9 points, 3.9 assists and 2.7 rebounds per game, and is an elite free throw shooter (connecting on 90.4 percent), as of Jan. 24. A few days before I met him, Simons led the Blazers, sans star Lillard, to victory in Utah, scoring a career-high 45 points on 15 of 25 shooting. In fact, the two words that best describe his season are “career-high.”
Simons admits that he’s “for sure” taken a big leap forward this season. “Coming into this year, there’s a lot of expectations for us to win, and I’m carrying the things I learned from last year to this year,” he says. “I’m still learning, continuing to grow and knowing where I want to be.”
Damian Lillard first saw Anfernee Simons work out for the Portland Trail Blazers, a few months before the team would draft him in 2018. The six-time All-Star immediately understood that this kid had something special. “He looked really young, he was skinny, and the other guys were more physically ready than he was, but you could just see the talent,” Lillard tells me. “His disposition was like, you can tell that something was there… You know, he was quiet, but not timid. I peeped it. I paid attention to him. I could see that there was something in there, worth investing in.”
Four-and-a-half years later, Simons has evolved, in part thanks to Dame’s tutelage. He’s grown physically stronger and become a more aggressive player, while maintaining the intrinsic modesty that makes him him. So how did Simons go from a quiet 19-year-old drafted out of high school to the number two star on a team that is fighting for a playoff spot in the Western Conference?
When I met Simons at his home last month, he was unassuming, to put it mildly. The 6’3 guard lives in a mansion in Lake Oswego, an affluent, stunningly verdant suburb of Portland. The deck has a pool, a muted, reflective blue, which overlooks the lake and a forest, and you can see Mount Hood, stately and majestic, in the distance. In the entrance way, there’s a big Christmas tree (it’s December) with fairly traditional ornaments, for the most part, except for a gleaming glass basketball hanging from the center of the tree. The floors are marble, and everything is shiny, slick and sparkling clean. In the kitchen, there’s a white wooden square with the words “be humble” engraved into it, resting on a small easel.
Simons is spindly and aggressively tattooed, like many basketball players are. He has portraits of his mother, father, and sister on his arms, as well as a family tree, illustrating how important his family is to him. On the underside of his wrist, he has Jeremiah 29:11 written into cursive: “For I know the plans I have for you, declares the Lord, plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future.”
I’m carrying the things I learned from last year to this year. I’m still learning, continuing to grow and knowing where I want to be.
Brian Scheall, the director of basketball at IMG, tells me that he was drawn to Simons’ “emotionless” demeanor. “He didn’t let things affect him, whether something didn’t go well, or even if he hit a huge shot. He was so even-keeled. That’s a trait he has that’s helped him be successful,” Scheall says. “He’s a humble kid.”
Simons’ ascent is proof that there are many ways to become top tier NBA talent. Some superstars are pure alpha, vocal as hell, exceptional trash-talkers, and have huge egos to match their huge talent. Other star players to come out of IMG, Scheall says, “are a little more cocky and flamboyant, and that’s why they’re successful.” But Simons’ fundamental humility, the fact that he is always listening and learning, his stoicism and emotional balance, is what made him the $100 million player that he is today. “Anfernee became a rock,” Scheall recalls. “He became a really good teammate.”
On Draft night in 2018, Charles and Tameka were brimming with anxiety. “Anfernee was not stressed at all,” Tameka says. Her son remembers things a little differently, telling me he was anxious about where he was going to end up. After he was selected 24th by the Portland Trail Blazers, Charles’ and Tameka’s anxiety immediately dissolved, and they felt excited for and proud of their youngest son. “It was a relief to know that he had made the right decision to forego college,” Tameka says.
Creative Direction: Martin Rickman Design: Daisy James & Ralph Ordaz
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Writer – Eve Peyser | Associate Editor – Bill DiFilippo | Creative Director – Martin Rickman
Designers – Daisy James, Carlos Sotelo Olivas, Joe Petrolis | Photographer – Dia Miller | Project Manager - Jason Tabrys
Creative Direction: Martin Rickman Design: Daisy James & Ralph Ordaz
Creative Direction: Martin Rickman Design: Daisy James & Ralph Ordaz
By Katie Heindl / Contributor / Dime And Uproxx Sports
Anfernee Simons’ Ascent Is Real, And He’s Just Getting Started
Allow Me to REIntroduce Myself
Allow Me TO
introduce Myself
The ClimB
He has a sweet babyface, almost perfectly symmetrical,
plump and cherubic, his chin and upper lip sprinkled
with curly black facial hair. He looks younger than he is.
Not that the Portland Trail Blazers guard is particularly old to begin with — at 23, he is young in both NBA years (a place where being in your late thirties means getting shipped off to the old folks home) and regular person years. You can tell by the glint in his eyes that he’s fundamentally shy, and he is indeed introverted. And even though he signed a four year, $100 million extension with the Trail Blazers last June, he exudes an intrinsic air of modesty. He’s reserved, taciturn, and reticent. He speaks in hushed tones. “He’s a quiet, quiet guy,” his father Charles confirms.
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Tattooed on the underside of his wrist, he has Jeremiah 29:11 written
into cursive: “For I know the plans I have for you, declares the Lord, plans
to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future.”
Anfernee was born in a suburb of Orlando in June 1999 to Charles and Tameka Simons. He was named for Orlando Magic superstar Anfernee “Penny” Hardaway, who was traded to the Phoenix Suns when Simons was two months old. (I guess there’s only room for one basketball whiz named Anfernee in the Orlando metropolitan area?) So, in a sense, he was basically destined to be an NBA player. Though Charles maintains that when he started teaching his son the game at a young age, the goal wasn’t to go pro, but rather, get a full-ride to college.
Tameka tells me that when Anfernee was two or three years old, “Charles would ask him to do certain things, and say, ‘Dribble with your right hand, dribble with your left hand.’ He was able to do it.” As he got older, Charles taught him about pick-and-rolls and how to make floaters. Basketball, Simons recalls, “was a special thing between me and my dad.”
Ironically enough, Simons is one of the few players who was drafted after the NBA changed the minimum age requirement to 19 in 2005, to enter the league without playing in college. He originally committed to play for the University of Louisville, but decommitted due to the school’s involvement in an NCAA scandal. He was able to enter the 2018 NBA Draft because he did a postgraduate year at the IMG Academy in Bradenton, Florida.
Moving to gloomy Portland from sunny Florida was a “culture shock,” Simons tells me. “Just everything was different… The bad weather can get kind of depressing here.” His life was changing very quickly. At his first training camp, he realized he had to “relearn the game on a whole new level.” He had his quintessential “welcome to the NBA” moment during his first preseason. He was playing against the Toronto Raptors, and Kawhi Leonard got switched onto him. “We talked about it after the game,” Charles recalls. “He was just like, I ain’t know what to do. I was just trying to get up a shot.” (“He airballed it,” Tameka interjects.)
Simons has come a long way since getting clamped by Kawhi, and Lillard has been instrumental in shaping his career. “He took me under his wing and taught me everything he knew about the game. I was like a sponge, taking it all in,” Simons tells me. “He would just take the time to teach me, no matter what it was, even during the game when he was playing. He would bring me to the side and tell me, This is why I’m doing this. And I’m a rookie. I’m not even playing.” Lillard says he’s helped Simons get more comfortable with the fast pace of the NBA.
“His comfort with the speed of the game has been the biggest thing I’ve seen,” Dame says. “People first come into the league, and the game feels so fast that it speeds them up and they can’t really get stuff done. He’s adjusted to the pace really well. He can get to his pull-up threes, get his floaters, get to his mid-range jumper.”
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I’m a huge dreamer. I dream big, really big. I dream so big that sometimes I’ve got to let my expectations just die down a little bit.
Now that Simons is an established player in his own right, he’s been paying it forward, mentoring younger players on the team. He’s particularly close with teammate Nassir Little, a small forward out of North Carolina who was drafted a year after him. Little, who also grew up in the Orlando area, recalls meeting Simons for the first time in 2016. “He was kind of short, really skinny, super quiet, and a really good shooter,” Little says. “When I got drafted, he had put out a tweet and was like, Orlando boys back together, something like that. He was one of the first people to welcome me to Rip City.”
In the locker room, per Little, Simons is (unsurprisingly) very quiet, and mostly keeps to himself. But once you get to know him, Little says, he opens up. During Little’s first year in the league, Simons helped him adjust to NBA life, telling him what to expect as a rookie and advising Little to “be a sponge.” Nowadays, the teammates spend a lot of time together on and off the court, hanging out at Simons’ house, watching Tennessee Titans games—Simons is an avid fan—and just shooting the shit.
Aside from hanging out with Little or playing Call of Duty in his game room with friends from Orlando, Simons’ life is basketball. That dedication, of course, has contributed to his standout season. “I’m focusing on what I need to do better at and what I need to do to reach my potential,” he says. “There’s still levels I need to reach.”
“He’s been receptive from day one,” Dame says. “It’s been a pleasure to see him take everything and be a sponge and continue to grow.” The $100 million contract is beside the point. Anfernee Simons is humble, and he doesn’t take anything for granted. And this is only the beginning. He is ascending, and there’s no limit on how high he’ll go.
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He didn’t let things
affect him, whether something didn’t go well, or even if he hit a huge shot. He was so even-keeled. That’s a trait he has that’s helped him be successful
Brian Scheall,
director of basketball at IMG
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I’m focusing on what I need to do better at and what I need to do to reach my potential. There’s still levels
I need to reach.
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His comfort with the
speed of the game
has been the biggest thing I’ve seen. He’s adjusted to the pace really well. He can get to his pull-up threes, get his floaters, get to his mid-range jumper.
Damian Lillard,
TRAILBLAZERS TEAMMATE
by
Eve Peyser