You never know who you’ll run into at the Santa Barbara Municipal Airport. It could even be Portland Trail Blazers guard, Anfernee Simons.
An HGM employee noticed a familiar face purchasing one of our cone 10 magnets, while fulfilling an order of magnets to the SBA in early November. He must’ve still had the Lakers on the brain after their finals win a month prior, because he did not immediately recognize Simons.
Once the employee got home, the first thing he did was watch his highlights.
Simons averaged 20.7 minutes per game in the shortened 2019-20 season, and saw action in 70 of Portland’s 74 games. The Trail Blazers drafted him 24th overall out of high school in the 2018 draft.
Simple enough, right?
Not exactly. Simons graduated from Edgewater High School, in Orlando, FL, in 2017. He then played for the US men's national under-19 basketball team, but due to 2005 rule changes requiring players to be 19 and one year removed from high school, was ineligible for the 2017 NBA Draft. Rather than playing college ball, Simons opted for a postgraduate year of high school at IMG Academy in Bradenton, FL.
So in the span of a month Simons finished high school (for the second time), turned 19 and became the second player to be selected in the first-round out of high school since 2005. Quite the month!
Simons will enter his third year in the National Basketball Association when the abbreviated 72-game 2021 season begins on Dec. 22, 2020. Everyone at HGM can’t wait to see what he does next.
Follow Anfernee Simons on Twitter @AnferneeSimons.