We almost forgot that one. The last time we saw him on a floor? It was on the occasion of the 2021 Playoffs, it was on the occasion of an incredible refusal to comply in full money time of a Game 7 of the semi-finals of the Conference against the Hawks. We’re not going to rewrite history, but since that tragic end with the Sixers about fourteen months have passed, and Ben Simmons still hasn’t put on the damn shorts.
Ding-dong, we’re almost there, well maybe. Crossing the desert soon over for Ben Simmons? In any case, this is what the insider Shams Charania seems to have wanted to tell us yesterday by announcing that after a century without playing ball, the Nets point guard – for the moment – was therefore going to re-test the swelling during small 3×3 sessions. No question here of going to have it with the Plouffe sisters or Leo Cavaliere while listening to the Magic System during downtimebut rather small returns to the sources on heated parquet, history, already and above all, to find sensations unknown for more than a year.
Recently had back surgery sitting for a year makes your lower back creak, Benny has therefore followed from afar the jerk inflicted on his family by Boston last April and the latest news concerning his Brooklyn franchise, namely the departure of a dozen players and the still current drama around the Kevin Durant and Kyrie Irving. At fault even when he is not playing (his contract notably prevents the Nets from shoeing certain big NBA players), the former bestie of Joel Embiid will in any case be able to taste the joys of basketball again, just to – why not – remind the ignorant and with short memories that he is still a strange phenomenon on a basketball court. We are talking about a playmaker of almost 2m10 who runs like a rabbit and who defends like the damned, of a train of more than 105 kilos capable of perforating any rib cage but also of releasing ten caviars per matchand apart from a problem of shooting (and therefore of position) we are therefore on the kind of atypical profile making BS a potential terror if he regains all of his means.
In-house retroplanning? Trot and play some half-court opposition, with the goal of being rare for the start of the Nets’ training camp in September and on top for the start of the season in October. Ah yes, the Nets’ first preseason game? October 3 against the… Sixers, oh, how well life is done.