Ben Simmons’ sad Nets career could be ending in most predictable way possible
DETROIT — Ben Simmons won’t play again for the Nets this season.
Now come all the other questions. The uncomfortable ones for Brooklyn and for Simmons.
With Simmons having missed nearly three-quarters of his games since arriving, it’s fair to ask whether will require yet another surgery. Will he ever be healthy? And will he ever suit up again as a Net?
Brooklyn shutting him down with a nerve impingement in his left lower back leaves them shorthanded, and Simmons’ future in question.
“I hope his mental is fine,” Mikal Bridges said. “I just know getting hurt isn’t fun at all. It gets with you mentally, so hope he’s just all right and just hope [for a] speedy recovery.
“It’s tough. You don’t wish that on nobody. … So just hope he’s good up top in his head. I know it’s tough wanting to be out there and working to get back and then being out, so hopefully he’s all right.”
Already sidelined since Feb. 26, the Nets announced Thursday that Simmons will be out the rest of the campaign while he consults with specialists and explores treatment options for the impingement.
Simmons has been absent, playing just 57 of 192 regular-season games for the Nets — and all eight playoff tilts — after being acquired from Philadelphia on Feb. 10, 2022, for James Harden. But the cost has been more than ‘just’ the former MVP.
Brooklyn will have paid Simmons more than $86 million for two-plus seasons — $73,342,080 the past two seasons and roughly $13 million from the 2021-22 season in which they acquired him. And they’re not done paying.
Brooklyn can’t get a disabled player exception for him with the deadline having passed on Jan. 15.
Simmons’ $40.3 million salary next season and injuries make moving him tough. The Nets could mull a buyout, and stretch him.
Whatever the case, GM Sean Marks needs to decide if Simmons is a sunk cost.
Simmons, agent Bernard Lee and Nets medical personnel “are currently in discussions with numerous experts to determine the course of action that will provide him with the best opportunity for long-term sustainable health,” according to a statement from the team. But in Simmons’ case, that health has been all too fleeting.
“I know he has a lot of emotions that’s inside of him. But he’s been down this road before and I know he’s going to get prepared with his team, our medical staff, our organization. And we have empathy for him,” said interim coach Kevin Ollie, who wouldn’t answer whether Simmons would need another back surgery.
“I’m not going to speculate on that. I just pray he can come back healthy whatever God has for him and his rehab and him getting better. I want him to have faith that he can come back and be the Ben Simmons we know he can be.”
But can he really? The peaks and valleys — mostly valleys — following May 5, 2022, microdiscectomy surgery for a herniated L-4 disk have been disastrous.
Simmons averaged 6.1 points, 7.9 boards and 5.7 assists in just 15 games this season, with ex-coach Jacque Vaughn’s attack planned around him — part of the reason for Vaughn’s ex status.
Dr. Neel Anand — orthopedic spine surgeon and medical director of the Anand Spine Group — suggested a call on surgery has already been made.
“They already know what they’re doing. There is no mystery here. They’ve already made a decision,” Anand told The Post.
“If he’s constantly symptomatic and there is evidence of mechanical impingement — a bone spur or a disk — he probably will need some surgery to decompress it in the offseason. But on the flip side it may just be inflammatory; he takes an anti-inflammatory it settles down and he might be OK. So a lot depends on what you’re really finding the reason is. That’s what really matters.”
Either way, Brooklyn has to move forward.
“To not be able to compete and play and to have to sit and watch games, it sucks,” Nic Claxton said. “So you feel for him. [But] the show doesn’t stop.”
