His body of work in the playoffs is trending in the wrong direction. Not just one series--3 years of scoring decline. His body of work in the regular season is stagnant.
I'm all for moving Smart, TL, and picks for him, because he is a defensive stud. Or something else. And I'm a guy who values defense. But we shouldn't pretend that his negatives don't exist. He's at his ceiling, and he has anxiety issues about shooting the ball (especially in clutch situations). He's still a stud anyway because of the things that he can do well.
I'm not anti Simmons. I'm just trying to get the pro Simmons folks to be honest that the guy is a flawed player. And that factors into the acquisition cost...or at least it should. Morey's going to find that out too. We're 2 weeks past that magic day when half the league can be traded and crickets so far.
I don't want to trade Brown for him, but....
I'm not so sure I'd say his body of work is trending in the wrong direction in the playoffs. His scoring has declined, but his efficiency jumped year 2, and stayed higher in year 3 (even with his FT shot abandoning him) than year 1, now some of that is a decrease in usage year 1 to 2 (steady in 3), but he's also turning it over at a lower rate, and his impact on their offense has been bigger (some of that may be depth/rotation related, but even in the game Embiid missed last year, he went for 19/10/11 on 7/11 from the floor and 5/8 from the line).
Simmons had a terrible series against the Hawks, but there isn't really any evidence of a downward trend in anything over his playoff performances except shots, and the massive increase in efficiency indicates he's keeping the good shots and losing the ones he shouldn't take. He's basically done what a lot of people want Marcus Smart to do on offense... pass more and better, and stop missing bad shots.
I'm not thrilled with the idea of a Brown/Simmons swap, but I'd jump at any non-Brown/Tatum deal, and I'd have to strongly consider a 3 way deal that sent Brown/Smart + out for Simmons and another young impact player (or an older STAR).