At the moment, Ben Simmons shoots jump shots and foul shots left-handed. Therefore, Ben Simmons is considered left-handed. This, always, is the determining factor when it comes to one's handedness.However, Simmons shoots neither of these types of shots very well. Yet to make a three-point shot on the season, and having attempted only ten in total of which eight were halfcourt heaves, Simmons is the extremely rare point guard (or whatever you wish to call him) that cannot shoot from outside. Non-shooting point guards have existed before in the league, but not for a while, and not with this level of talent. It is extremely rare for a player who is so good at everything else to have such a pronounced weakness in this area.On the season according to basketball-reference.com, Simmons is shooting only 30.6% on all jump shots. BR's stats tend to include floaters as jump shots, and Simmons's inconsistency on floaters is another issue, but it does speak to the problems he has away from the basket. Look at the short chart, for example, and drink in all those red ticks away from the hoop.The more urgent problem however is the foul shooting. Simmons is hitting only 55.7% from the free-throw line as a rookie, which is having a problematic impact particularly in late game situations. The idea of deliberately fouling poor foul shooters either in crucial situations or when down big is not new, and is well documented in players ranging from Shaquille O'Neal, Dwight Howard, Ben Wallace and Andre Drummond. But the ungainly sight of watching players try to sprint away off the ball from deliberate fouls is usually reserved for big men, as can be seen in that list of names.Simmons cannot sprint away from the ball in this way because he is the ball-handler. He is the playmaker, the driving force throughout the offence, the man through whom everything is funnelled. But if he can only be that player for the first 43 minutes or so of a game, the Sixers will have a problem. A leader is required to lead more than ever when in pressure situations, and yet if Simmons is unable to take up the challenge in these moments due to the risk of him being fouled, that is an issue that needs addressing.There therefore abounds a certain theory that perhaps Simmons would benefit from a switch of shooting hand.This would not be entirely unprecedented. While rare, there have been a few instances of players switching hands in the middle of their basketball career, sometimes for a bit, but sometimes forever. There are also instances of genuinely ambidextrous players who, it is supposed, could do it if required.LeBron James, a right-handed shooter and primarily a right-handed basketball player, writes with his left hand and is otherwise sinistral. Kobe Bryant once made a left-handed three-pointer in a game. Steph Curry is a better left-handed foul shooter than most of the left-handed players in the league are, and Lord knows surely ever NBA player has tried to shoot off-hand free throws a few times. (As have we all, surely.) And Jamal Murray of the Denver Nuggets proudly speaks of his ability to shoot jumpers with both hands, here going 50% with both, as is the way with four-shot sample sizes.

The most relevant modern example is still an NBA player today. After struggling from the foul line in his only year at Texas (48,7%) and in his first year with the Cleveland Cavaliers (55.2%), while also being no threat away from the basket, Tristan Thompson switched his shooting hand as a sophomore, and initially saw rewards. In the first four years after switching hand, Thompson shot greater than 60% from the line, including getting as high as 69.3% in his third year in the league. Thompson has since lost that stroke again as a part of wider struggles, but it may yet return.

At the college level, a player named Tavon Allen famously began his career with the Drexel Dragons shooting jump shots with both hands. Allen would shoot three-pointers with his left hand, and shoot two-pointers with his right hand. It was a novelty, to be sure, and it theoretically made him harder to guard.

Ultimately, though, Allen stopped doing this. The gimmick did not really help - all it meant was that he was a mediocre shooter with both hands, and it did not gain any discernible advantage over defenders, who generally did not mind him shooting however he liked given his extreme inefficiency as a shooter (combined with his staunch determination to keep trying and his sometimes-poor shot selection). Allen shot only 33.0% from three-point range for his college career, and did not gain much apart from name recognition in articles like this.

Perhaps the reason Simmons gets a "change hand" rather than "work on your shot" narrative on account of how smooth he is with his 'off' hand in every other aspect of the game. Simmons drives right, throws one-handed passes with his right, and finishes with his right hand, all just as well as he does with his left. Simmons is as ambidextrous of a player as anyone, and it is to his credit in a sense that this discussion even exists.

Perhaps it has something to do with the fact that Simmons himself acknowledges that he only shoots lefty in the first place at his father's behest.

Or perhaps it has something to do with the fact that he looks so smooth shooting with his right.

The problems with Simmons's shooting form are fixable. The shooting rhythm is there and the release of the ball seems clean. The questions more are ones of balance, of reducing the motion in his left arm, of not taking the ball so far back above his head, and making sure his follow-through is true and straight. By honing one issue at a time, Simmons should be able to work out these kinks with good coaching, good habits and repetition, all of which seem to be in place.

The rhythm looks better with righty in the above clip, however. If it is already organically better - and, of course, we are hereby using a sample size of precisely two shots - would it not make sense to develop the more organic one, when it is suitably early in his career to still be planting seeds for the future?

This question is one for NBA shot doctors and NBA shot doctors alone. But the journey of Ben Simmons's shooting is one we all await the outcome of.