The much anticipated season debut of Ben Simmons cannot come soon enough. The NBA is in its final month of regular-season games, with the Brooklyn Nets having 15 more games to salvage their season and qualify for the Playoffs as a top-six seed. However, that will be a challenge as long as Kyrie Irving is a part-time player and Ben Simmons stays on the sidelines.
With the Nets having pulled off a major win over the Philadelphia 76ers, they need to refocus on the upcoming set of fixtures and make sure they can survive the very competitive Eastern Conference come playoff time. Ben Simmons would help with that, but head coach Steve Nash had a negative update to share about the Aussie guard.
“He’s not ready for even one-on-one, let alone three-on-three, five-on-five,” Nash said. “So he’s got to get to a place where he can go full speed unopposed, one-on-oh, and then we’ll talk about and hopefully quickly he can go to one-on-one, three-on-three, five-on-five.”
Ben Simmons is doing light court work according to Steve Nash. Next he has to go full speed 1 on 0, then 1 on 1 and so forth. #nets
— Brian Lewis (@NYPost_Lewis) March 12, 2022
Simmons’ availability has been a massive question mark his entire career. While the discussions over the summer were more about his playstyle, his spotty past with injuries often got overlooked. After all, Simmons missed his rookie year due to back issues that he is reportedly still trying to work through.
Even though the ancillary pieces of the trade that brought Simmons to Brooklyn in Seth Curry and Andre Drummond have been playing, Brooklyn desperately needs a defensive player of Simmons’ caliber on the floor. His playmaking abilities will also breed more opportunities for surrounding role-players.
Simmons is a long-term bet for Brooklyn, so there may also be hope to preserve him for next season, but with the ages of Kevin Durant and Kyrie Irving, the Defensive Player of the Year runner-up last season needs to be on the floor to help them win-now.
