Brooklyn Nets guard Ben Simmons will be out for the remainder of the regular season due to a nerve impingement in his back, the team announced Thursday. This is the same issue that the 27-year-old Simmons has been dealing with all season as all parties involved are still trying to determine the best path forward.
Here is the Nets' full release:
Ben Simmons will remain out for the remainder of the season while he consults with specialists and explores treatment options for the nerve impingement in his lower back. Simmons, along with his representatives and Nets medical personnel, are currently in discussions with numerous experts to determine the course of action that will provide him with the best opportunity for long-term sustainable health.
After missing the last 24 regular season games and the Nets' entire first-round playoff series last season with nerve irritation in his back, Simmons was declared healthy heading into this campaign. He played just six of their first seven games before his back issues cropped up again, however. That led to a 10-week spell on the sideline, and his return to action on Jan. 29 proved to be short-lived. He appeared in nine games between then and Feb. 26 prior to being shut down again.
Simmons' agent, Bernie Lee, released a statement to SNY earlier this week taking the blame for his client's persistent back problems.
"It is a continuation of the same injury that he has dealt with all year," Lee said. "….We are trying to get clearer answers as to how to get him out of the reactive cycle he's in.
"...We continue to try and find non-surgical options to allow Ben to move forward on a permanent basis and that is where this is my responsibility and I am [the] one to blame.
"When I began working with Ben I made a commitment to him that I would do everything I could to find the right answers and specialists for him to work with [in order] to move forward from the issues he has been having. Clearly it hasn't happened and that's my responsibility."
In 15 games this season, Simmons averaged 6.1 points, 7.9 rebounds and 5.7 assists on 58.1% shooting from the field. Until the Nets and Simmons' camp decide on a treatment plan, it's impossible to say when he may be back on the court. Simmons will be entering the final year of the five-year, $177 million deal he signed while still a member of the Philadelphia 76ers, and is set to be an unrestricted free agent in 2025.
Due to various injuries and his holdout at the start of the 2021-22 season, Simmons has only played 115 games since inking his max extension. Fifty-eight of them came during that first, COVID-shortened season which ended in embarrassment for both him and the Sixers. If you remove those, Simmons is at 57 games in the last three seasons and has not completed any of them. He's already undergone one back surgery in 2022 and could be facing another.
At this point, Simmons' days of being a star are long gone, but if he can find a way to stay on the floor he's shown that he can still be a productive, if limited, player.
