Aamir Simms knows what he has to do now if he wants to be in the conversation for the 2021 NBA Draft.
Clemson’s forward announced on June 1 he was returning to Clemson for his senior year after testing the NBA draft waters for two months. Simms declared himself eligible for the 2020 NBA Draft on March 31, but he did not take on an agent, there for he was able to maintain his eligibility.
“I wanted to put my name in and kind of get a feel and get some feed back from what teams thought of me,” Simms said Tuesday on the Packer & Durham Show on the ACC Network. “You kind of get a good representation of your game. They know a lot about you before you even put your name in and go through the process and they kind of grade you and where they think you will be drafted.
“Then you have your interviews and calls with the scouts and stuff. Once I got that information back, it was a good response and feed back from them. I know what I need to work on, so I think it was best that I came back to school and perfected my craft going into my senior year.”
What exactly do scouts want Simms to work on?
“My defensive versatility. They know how versatile I am on offense, playing in the post and mid-range,” he said. “They just want to see me do a little more on defense. If I get switched on to a guard, they want me to stay with him a little bit longer and protect the rim a little bit more and guard the post a little bit better.
“You definitely learn a lot more about your game than you think. They kind of tell you what they think of your game in an NBA perspective.”
Simms earned third-team All-ACC honors last year, after he averaged 13.0 points and 7.2 rebounds per game last season, helping the Tigers advance to the quarterfinals of the ACC Tournament before the season was cut short due to the COVID-19 pandemic. He played in 30 of the Tigers’ 31 games.
“Even though I did not get the in-person workouts and stuff. Just the interviews alone just let me know what I need to work on and how tedious I need to be with everything I need to do going forward,” the Clemson forward said.
Simms and his teammates hope to get back to voluntary workouts this week after they go through testing and the proper protocols before returning to the basketball facilities.
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