Nets, Ben Simmons feel optimistic this season can be different

The Nets have an agreement with Ben Simmons entering training camp. If Simmons is healthy and productive, he will play a lot of point guard in 2023-24.

“If Ben is able to play consistently at a certain way there's no doubt, then, that he should have the basketball in his hands,” Nets head coach Jacque Vaughn said on Tuesday.

Simmons hasn’t been able to play – with or without the ball in his hands - for much of the past two seasons. He didn’t play for the Nets in 2022 due to lingering back issues following a trade to Brooklyn. Last season, he was limited to 42 games (33 starts) due to back and knee ailments.

Will this season be different?

Both Simmons and the Nets feel optimistic about the answer to that question. The 27-year-old enters training camp next week without injury limitation.

“It's been fun to see him play five-on-five and fun to see him put the work in (during) the summer,” Nets GM Sean Marks said during the club’s season-opening press conference on Tuesday. “So I think we're all excited to see what translates during camp.”

Simmons was healthy entering training camp last season, but injuries and poor play dogged him for much of the year and missed most of the second half of the year due to that lingering back impingement. When healthy, Simmons averaged career-lows in points (6.9), assists (6.1), and rebounds (6.3) per game while sharing the floor with Kyrie Irving and Kevin Durant.

At the end of another frustrating season, there was a glimmer of optimism. Simmons and the Nets felt that they had a clearer understanding of his back ailment entering the offseason.

So there was hope on both sides that Simmons would be able to train all offseason and get back on the court for October.

“We feel like we have been given really solid clarity as to what he is experiencing, how and why and, most importantly, what needs to happen (now) to allow him to move forward with consistency and regularity,” Bernie Lee, Simmons’ agent, told SNY in late March.

Simmons had a strong offseason by all accounts. There were no setbacks. He progressed from rehab to skill work to playing 3-on-3 and, now, 5-on-5.

Throughout the summer, Simmons said again and again that he was feeling good and looking forward to the season.

Marks didn’t want to publicly state any expectations for Simmons this season while speaking to the media on Tuesday. But privately, those who have spent time around Simmons feel that his offseason quotes are based on substance. They say he’s looking good and seems primed for a comeback season.

Neither Marks nor Vaughn spoke about Simmons that strongly during Tuesday’s press conference. But it seemed that both the GM and coach were optimistic about the 2018 Rookie of the Year.

Vaughn, particularly, said he has more clarity on what to expect from Simmons. It seemed like a stark contrast from last February when Vaughn said he was still trying to figure out the best lineups to fit Simmons amid his diminished role.

“I think at that time, I was at a place where as a coach I'm always gonna have a standard, and that standard of what I expect guys on the team to do, how we want them to play and ask them to do things for the sake of the team," Vaughn said on Tuesday. "I think Ben's and I relationship is in such a good place right now because we've been able to talk through some of those things, that moment in time of our life where I expected him to do things that I've come to understand that physically, he just couldn't do.

“I think, at that time, you kept hearing me talk about force and those things and how I wanted him to play. And so now (it’s) like a revelation that I've seen the work that he's put in, where he was at, some of those things have been revealed to me, and I think that's why our relationship is at a really good place right now.

"But the things that I'm asking him to do going forward, I think he can physically do now. And so it does … put us in a position where I can use multiple lineups, different people around him so we can have success on both ends of the floor.”

Those lineups will include Spencer Dinwiddie playing off the ball. And they will include Nic Claxton and the potential spacing issues that come with Simmons and Claxton sharing the floor. As long as Simmons is healthy and productive, he should play a lot of minutes for this Nets team. In some ways, this may be his last opportunity to re-establish himself as a serviceable starter in the NBA.

The Nets talked to multiple teams about trades involving Simmons ahead of the 2023 NBA trade deadline. The idea was to get off of his contract, per multiple teams in touch with Brooklyn at the time.

There was one Southeast Division team with a legitimate interest in trading for Simmons then as a reclamation project. But outside of that, teams were wary of bringing him on.

Simmons is in the second-to-last season of the five-year extension he signed with the Sixers in 2019. So time isn’t on his side. This is his best chance to author a comeback story. Nets leadership is rooting for him. So are his teammates.

All that matters now is what happens on the court.

“The Ben questions, the Mikal Bridges questions, the Cam Thomas questions, they all fit around ‘You still gotta perform,'” Vaughn said on Tuesday. “At the end of the day, you're going to be judged on your performance and that's going to garner the minutes. The performance is on both ends of the floor… At the end of the day are you doing both things? Are you giving enough on both ends of the floor? That's what everyone will be judged on.”

A few other Nets notes...

MORE THREES FOR DINWIDDIE

Vaughn wants Cam Johnson shooting 8-10 threes per game this season. He also wants Dinwiddie taking more threes and believes the Nets can get him more opportunities off the catch. 

“The years he averaged 20 and 18 a game in this league, he shot 6.5 threes a game. So do we want him shooting more threes? Yes,” Vaughn said of Dinwiddie. Vaughn referenced the loss of Patty Mills, Joe Harris, Yuta Watanabe and Seth Curry in his press conference when talking about three-pointers. 

With those four shooters playing elsewhere, the Nets will need to “incorporate different ways to score the basketball” this season, Vaughn says. 

DOES MARKS WANT TO SEE THIS GROUP BEFORE MAKING MORE MOVES? 

It seems like Marks wants to see how his current group looks before making any significant moves. He was asked on Tuesday about potentially getting involved in a trade and taking on salary. 

“(Nets governor) Joe Tsai, myself and JV have talked openly about how this team will look in the upcoming years and when’s the right time to go back in (to make a significant acquisition),” Marks said. “Whether it’s facilitating another deal, whether it’s acquiring more players, whether it’s seeing what these young guys on our team right now can develop, and that’s an exciting piece too that we’re forgetting to mention. This group developing together, first training camp. We’re certainly not in any hurry, but at the end of the day, we’re gonna do our due diligence like we always have over the course of the last six years.” 

STRONG NIGHT FOR LI YOUTH

Earlier this month, Unique Sports Management International raised more than $100,000 at its annual Long Island College Scholarship Gala. The event honored the work of Torrel and Lisa Harris, who, along with a group of sponsors and donors, provide support for the Joseph Toles Foundation and Terresita L. Johnson Memorial Scholarships. 

The Johnson Memorial Scholarships are in honor of Harris’ late sister. Fundraising from the group supports underprivileged youth in Wyandanch, Uniondale and Hempstead along with students from the adoption agency "You Gotta Believe."