'People forget': Simmons confronts $255m truth

Ben Simmons believes he is fully rebuilt.

Now the former All-Star is ready to help the Brooklyn Nets with their reconstruction.

“It’s just about getting better every day," Simmons, who is guaranteed $57 million in the final year of his $255 million deal this season, said at the team’s practice facility in Brooklyn.

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“For us, that’s coming in each day and getting better. And that’s going to show up in the wins. It’s going to show up in the losses. That takes time.”

Time is something the Nets have in spades. A franchise that was among the league’s elite not long ago now finds itself beginning a top-to-bottom renovation under first-time head coach Jordi Fernández.

Following a dismal 2023-24 season in which Brooklyn (32-50) did not qualify for the NBA playoffs for the first time since 2017-18, general manager Sean Marks sent swingman Mikal Bridges to the New York Knicks in a blockbuster trade. The Nets received four first-round draft picks (2025, 2027, 2029, 2031) and a 2025 second-round pick.

The Nets have five picks — four in the first round — in the June draft. Overall, Brooklyn has 25 picks over the next seven drafts. And that number is likely to rise as Brooklyn could move veterans Bojan Bogdanovic, Dorian Finney-Smith, Dennis Schroder and Cam Johnson.

“It’s part of the business,” Finney-Smith said of the trade rumours.

It is also logical, considering the 2025 draft potentially has franchise-transformational talents in Duke power forward Cooper Flagg and the Rutgers tandem of small forward Ace Bailey and shooting guard Dylan Harper.

While Marks and owner Joe Tsai are focused on the future of the franchise, the present is likely to be painful as oddsmakers believe the Nets won’t win more than 20 games.

They are aware of the less-than-flattering critique.

“Everyone that’s here, you’ve had these conversations, and they’re grown conversations, they’re adult conversations, they’re serious conversations, and player to player we’ve had them,” Johnson said. “And I think the one thing I can gather from it is that we’re all embracing this challenge.

"On one hand, you say we have low expectations then we just get to come out and play how we play without all that added stress that can come with that. So, for us, we can use it to our advantage. Use it as a chip on our shoulder and use it as a weight off of our shoulder to go and just play how we do."

That is where Simmons comes in.

The 28-year-old had a microscopic partial discectomy in March to repair a lower-back nerve impingement that limited him to 15 games last season. Simmons, who rehabbed in Miami, said he has not had any setbacks since the procedure and believes he will be able to play at his accustomed level.

“I feel like when my body is healthy, that’s the confidence I always have,” Simmons said. “That’s where I’m at right now. Physically, I feel great and ready to go. And so it’s just getting reps, game reps and playing.

"I think people forget me as a player when I'm healthy, I can play basketball, I'm pretty good, right?" Simmons added. "For me it's just being consistent with that, and staying on top of my body. Getting better everyday and staying in the gym with these guys."

"We all hope he's healthy, and certainly he's looked it so far in open gym and the runs," Brooklyn's General Manager Sean Marks said. "I think for Ben [Simmons], people enjoy playing with him. For us, to look out here on the court to see the pickup games going, and see him participating, and him with a smile on his face, and him really enjoying being out there."

But a healthy Simmons could cause the Nets to play themselves out of contention for Flagg, Bailey or Harper.

That doesn’t necessarily bother one of Brooklyn’s veterans.

“I’m trying to win,” Finney-Smith said. “If Ben is Ben I feel like we (have) a good chance to win some games.”