The start of the Nets’ 2023 training camp is exactly one week away, and while the team is coming off a trip to the playoffs and has a rising superstar in Mikal Bridges on the roster, Ben Simmons remains the biggest question mark surrounding the organization.
Head coach Jacque Vaughn and general manager Sean Marks met with reporters on Tuesday ahead of next week’s camp, and Simmons’ health and role with the team were the topics of the day.
Acquired in the blockbuster deal that sent James Harden to the Philadelphia 76ers on Feb. 10, 2022, Simmons took the court as a Net for the first time this past season, but injuries and ineffective play plagued him. Appearing in 42 games, Simmons averaged 6.9 points, 6.1 assists and 6.1 rebounds, all of which were career-lows for the three-time All-Star.
The point forward was eventually shut down last season due to a nerve impingement in his back, but as Simmons’ agent Bernie Lee told SNY’s Ian Begley in late March, Simmons is indeed ready for the start of camp.
“Ben is playing 5-on-5, no restrictions, so he should be ready for training camp,” said Vaughn.
“It’s been fun to see him play 5-on-5 and fun to see him put the work in this summer,” added Marks, “so I think we’re all excited to see what translates during camp.”
So with Simmons apparently healthy and ready to go for the start of camp, that still leaves another big question: how can the Nets maximize Simmons’ ability to see him return to being the star player he once was in Philadelphia?
Both Vaughn and Marks explained that having more time to get to know Simmons, while also now having a full training camp to better incorporate him, could lead to Nets fans seeing a different player on the court this time around.
“As a coach, I’m always going to have a standard and that standard of what I expect guys to do, how we want them to play and ask them to do things for the sake of the team,” Vaughn said. “I think [my relationship with Ben] is in such a good place right now because we’ve been able to talk through some things, that moment in time in our lives [last season] where I expected him to do things that I’ve come to understand that physically he just couldn’t do. I think at that time you kept hearing me talk about force and those things and how I wanted him to play.
“And so now, like a revelation that I’ve seen, the work that he’s put in and where he was at, some of those things have been revealed to me, and I think that’s why our relationship is at a really good place right now. But the things that I’m asking him to do going forward, I think he can physically do now, and so it does put us in a position where we can use different lineups, put different people around him, and we can have success on both ends of the floor.”
Exactly how Simmons will be utilized on the floor remains to be seen. With Simmons, Spencer Dinwiddie and Dennis Smith Jr. all able to play the point, the Nets could roll out a plethora of different looks, though Vaughn did make a point to say “If Ben is able to play consistently a certain way, there’s no doubt then that he should have the basketball in his hands.”
Since the 2020-21 season, Simmons has had a bit of a fall from grace. After not playing at all in 2021-22 following a holdout and injury issues, he simply wasn’t the same player in his first season in Brooklyn.
But the Nets are ready to put the past behind them, and the team believes the future is bright with Simmons in the fold.
“I think what [Vaughn] said before was ‘let’s not talk about the past,’ right? Like, we’re not going to dwell on that a whole lot. I think we know Ben better now as a person and as a player and so forth,” Marks said. “He’s coming in healthy, and you guys have all read the quotes that Ben had. The fact that he’s feeling confident with where he is physically, that’s going to be exciting for us to go see him in camp and build out from there.
“So, to put expectations on where he will be over the course of the season, I think that’s a little bit unfair because we haven’t done that with any of our players. This is more about getting out here to support them and unleash them. I mean, if he’s feeling great that’s fantastic. That’s the whole goal here and as JV said, there are no inhibitions with how he should be incorporated in camp or throughout the season.”
