Sources: Nets' Ben Simmons '100 percent healthy,' now solely focused on skill work and conditioning
Brooklyn’s Ben Simmons continues to progress toward a return to the court.
Simmons has completed the rehab portion of his offseason and is now solely focused on skill work and conditioning as he prepares for 2023-24 training camp, league sources familiar with the matter told SNY.
Simmons, who turned 27 earlier this month, is 100 percent healthy and still expects to be a full participant on the first day of Nets training camp, those sources say.
They add that Simmons hasn’t encountered any setbacks over the course of the summer.
A healthy and productive Simmons would obviously be a huge boost for the Nets, who are entering the first full season without Kevin Durant and Kyrie Irving.
The Nets acquired Simmons ahead of the 2022 trade deadline in the blockbuster trade that sent James Harden to Philadelphia.
He didn’t suit up for Brooklyn that season as he dealt with lingering back issues. Simmons eventually had a microdiscectomy procedure at the end of the 2021-22 season to address pain located in a herniated disk in his lower back.
Both Simmons and the Nets hoped the surgery would help him get back on the court, but the three-time All-Star was limited to 42 games (33 starts) last season due to injury.
He missed the final six weeks of the season due to a nerve impingement in his back.
But Simmons and the Nets feel optimism about their approach this offseason as Simmons enters the fourth year of his five-year extension.
Simmons and the team considered a myriad of treatment options after the 2022-23 season but ultimately decided that there was no need for surgery. So Simmons spent the offseason adhering to a rehab program. Now, he has progressed to working on skills and conditioning.
When healthy last season, Simmons averaged 6.9 points, 6.1 assists and 6.3 rebounds per game.
This year’s Nets team will look markedly different from the team Simmons last took the floor with. Durant and Irving are gone.
Mikal Bridges and Cam Johnson are under contract for multiple seasons. The team re-signed Johnson this summer and added free agents Dennis Smith Jr. and Lonnie Walker. The club brings back Nic Claxton, Spencer Dinwiddie, Cam Thomas, Dorian Finney-Smith and Royce O’Neal.
According to ESPN, Simmons is currently penciled in as the Nets starting point guard. ESPN’s Marc Spears noted that Simmons feels as healthy as he’s been since his last full season in Philadelphia, prior to the season in which Simmons requested a trade from the Sixers and missed time due to mental health issues.
A source confirmed that Simmons will certainly be in the mix for the starting point guard role once training camp starts.
Bridges seems excited about having Simmons with him this season.
He said recently said that Simmons was in a ‘good place.’
“We’re close,” Bridges said on Paul George’s podcast. “….I think he just feels like he has a ... lot of friends and we all (embrace) him. Obviously we all want him to score and stuff but we’re not pressed about it. We just want him to be him, be aggressive and just play the right way.”
