Ben Simmons in action as Nets take on his former team in preseason
Nets guard Ben Simmons controls the ball against the 76ers during the first half of an NBA preseason game at Barclays Center on Monday. Credit: Kathleen Malone-Van Dyke
It had been more than 18 months since Ben Simmons last played a basketball game.
So much had happened since Simmons last took the floor on June 20, 2021, the night his 76ers were eliminated by the Atlanta Hawks in Game 7 of the second round of the playoffs.
Vilified in Philadelphia for passing up shots in that loss, Simmons missed the entire 2021-22 season, first citing mental health issues and then demanding a trade. After being sent to the Nets in the James Harden deal at the trade deadline, Simmons injured his back and missed the rest of the season.
As fate would have it, his first game back was against Philadelphia. Yes, it was only a preseason game. And yes, Harden and Joel Embiid, the superstar Simmons had a less-than-cozy relationship with, were not on the floor.
Yet for fans of symmetry, facing the 76ers seemed like a fitting way for Simmons to launch his career with the Nets. He got mixed reviews from the Barclays Center crowd when he was introduced.
The 76ers won, 127-108. Simmons’ first basket as a Net was a dunk on a bounce pass from Kyrie Irving with 9:15 left in the first quarter. He later was booed when he missed two free throws. All told, he played a little more than 19 minutes and had six points, five assists and three rebounds.
“It was amazing. I’m grateful just to be able step out on the floor again,” Simmons said. “I felt good out there. Shoot, I felt great.”
The Nets hope Simmons, who has the skills of a point guard but the size of a power forward, will be the facilitator they need to take full advantage of having two of the best scorers in the league in Irving and Kevin Durant. They also hope he can help shore up their defense, which was sorely lacking at times last season.
“I was pleased overall,” coach Steve Nash said. “It’s all so new. The guys need time together. We have to go through this. As the half wore on, we started to see glimpses of potential. I thought Ben looked good overall.”
76ers coach Doc Rivers had some interesting things to say about the task Nash has in trying to integrate Simmons with superstars Durant and IrvingRivers faced a somewhat similar situation when Kevin Garnett, Paul Pierce and Ray Allen played five years together in Boston, winning a championship in 2008.
“As easy as it sounds, it’s extremely hard to do,” Rivers said of getting three superstars to mesh. “I would say with Ben it might be easier, because you know what he wants to do as far as more of a passer, rebounder, defender and running the floor. You have three guys that want to score the ball and need the ball, that becomes way more difficult.”
Notes & quotes: NBA great Kareem Abdul-Jabbar blasted the Nets’ Irving on Monday for sharing a video of disgraced commentator Alex Jones on Instagram. “Kyrie Irving would be dismissed as a comical buffoon if it weren’t for his influence over young people,” Abdul-Jabbar wrote on his Substack. Irving posted the video as Jones went on trial in Connecticut, where he is being sued by parents of 20 children murdered at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown in 2012. He claimed that no one actually was killed and called the tragic massacre a hoax by crisis actors.
Barbara Barker is an award-winning columnist and features writer in the sports department at Newsday. She has covered sports in New York for more than 20 years.
