Brett Brown's Australian connection with LSU phenom Ben Simmons

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Just 11 games (or 13 percent) into the 2015-16 season and it appears as if the Sixers are on a collision course with one of the worst records in the NBA. To a lot of basketball fans that means ping-pong balls.

Lots and lots of ping-pong balls.

So as the losses mount and the Sixers compile those extra raffle tickets for the No. 1 overall pick, fans likely are keeping a close eye on LSU forward Ben Simmons, the early favorite to be the top pick in next June’s draft.

Simmons, 19, is a 6-foot-10, do-everything wing player who made his NCAA debut last week with a double-double and nearly followed it up with a triple-double Monday night, going for 22 points, nine rebounds, six assists, four steals and zero turnovers.

If the Sixers end up with the No. 1 pick, experts say Simmons is the choice and “it’s not even close.” What makes that even better is the relationship Sixers head coach Brett Brown has with the Simmons family. Specifically, Ben Simmons’ father.

“This is the real story behind it. Ben Simmons is the son of someone I coached for four years,” Brown said. “I was his dad’s assistant coach when I was with the Melbourne Tigers and his mom was the head cheerleader and then here comes Ben Simmons.”

Simmons’ dad, Dave, played 13 years of pro ball in Australia where he teamed up with Brown. While with the Tigers, who retired his number, Simmons played alongside Seton Hall standout and former NBA player, Andrew Gaze.

Needless to say, Brown remembers the elder Simmons’ game very well.

“David Simmons was from Harlem, New York. He could have been a linebacker, he could have been a prize fighter,” Brown said after Tuesday’s practice. “He was a basketball player more out of athleticism and girth than he was out of finesse and skill. He was a tough, tough 6-8 and hard like an Anthony Mason-type player.”

Ben Simmons isn’t that bruising type of player.

“His son is finesse and a 3, 1, 4,” Brown said. “Really different.”

Different from his father, but not so different from the style of play from other NBA players with Australian roots. Along with Simmons, Brown also coached the father of Utah’s Dante Exum and Kyrie Irving’s father when he played pro ball in Australia as well.

In fact, Drederick Irving played his college ball for Boston University, just like Brown.

“You go to Dante Exum of the Utah Jazz and I coached Cecil Exum who played at North Carolina for Dean Smith with Michael Jordan on the same team [as David Simmons],” Brown remembered. “Then Dante was born. But Cecil was my export, and then later Drederick Irving was my import, and then along comes Kyrie, born in Melbourne.”

Brown was there when basketball became the big sport in Australia. It was easy to understand why basketball became so popular down under. 

“It was cool and it was American and it had this different merchandise to it and the funky highlights and young kids were playing on the streets and there was no snow so you could play it every day,” Brown said.

“It had a real American feel and then the marketing people went bananas with the promotion of the sport and the glamor and beautiful cheer girls and all of that. Then the glitz and the American side of street ball came in. Then there was an African-American flavor to it that captured the country. They brought in some Americans who were just so gifted with the ball, and that captured the imagination of the Australians in the middle 1980s.”

Ben Simmons is just the latest in that lineage of American-Australian players filtering into the NBA.

“There is just a byproduct of all that American stuff I just told you,” Brown said. “Those two high draft picks are from American imports.”

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