With his professional and personal lives both shaken,Simmons was adrift. “These things just started piling up and piling up,and basketball was supposed to be my happy place,where I’m able to be free and express myself,and suddenly I wasn’t able to do that.” Before countless games he would call his sister Emily,who manages Simmons’s marketing and had,like Tribe,moved to the US to support him. He remembers once asking her a simple plaintive question:“Do you ever just wake up sad?”
Tribe says the rest of the season became an exercise in helping his brother navigate his emotions enough to stay focused. “It’s such a f…ed up thing to say,but you’re earning this amount,and the expectations reflect that,so you feel obliged to say,‘I know you’re dealing with shit,but you have a responsibility,’ ” he says. “Winning pushes everything to the side,too. And they were winning.”
“You feel obliged to say,‘I know you’re dealing with shit,but you have a responsibility.’ ”
Matters came to a head in aJune 2021 final against the Atlanta Hawks,when Simmons,who was underperforming at the time,had an opportunity to dunk the ball – or be fouled – but instead passed. His critics howled that his shooting deficiency had made him a liability,frightened of taking free throws. He was branded a coward over a split-second decision. “If I could go back I would go up strong,go to the line,” Simmons says. “But there was so much emphasis on that moment. I made a bad play,but loads of guys made bad plays. I’m not the reason we didn’t win.”
If that was the beginning,the end came into focus when 76ers coach Doc Rivers was asked:“Can Ben Simmons be the point guard of a championship team?” and answered,“I don’t know the answer to that right now.” Or maybe it was when star teammate Joel Embiid appeared to blame the player for the loss. Simmons requested a trade,the 76ers refused,and a standoff began in which herefused to front up to training camp or media day that September.
“I definitely didn’t handle it the right way after the season,but there’s two sides,” he says. “Your teammates are supposed to have your back. Your coaches are supposed to have your back. And I didn’t have that at all.”
His mental-health issues – bound up in depression but also the trappings of fame and the pressure of the game – were dismissed or downplayed. The club was frustrated,too,that Simmons refused to allow its doctors to assess his mental readiness. It all spilled over one day when he was suspended for not taking part in a defensive drill. “I still wasn’t ready in my head. I wasn’t in a place to get on the court and play. I went to Coach and said,‘I’m not ready yet to get back on the court,I need some time.’ He says,‘Well,I’m going to put you out there regardless,’ ” Simmons says,shaking his head. “Okay,so now you’re just trying to f… with me.”
The team began docking his wages $US360,305 for every missed game,and placed $US8.25 million of his salary in escrow (in case they needed to keep fining him). Simmons’s pride arguably turned the whole affair into a game of chicken. “At the time it feels justified,” Tribe says,“but when you look back and reflect,you wonder if there was an opportunity to leave the door open. Maybe he could have come to training camp and started the season,but still asked for a trade?”
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Simmons instead went silent. He says he felt stoic. Indeed,part of what seems to gall his critics is a trademark lack of overt expression – call it resting blank face. But don’t mistake his inscrutability for obliviousness. Schoolmate Tahj Malone was living with Simmons and saw the toll it took. Eating less. Sleeping longer. “You kinda saw him mentally going into a shell,kinda of shutting down. It was tough and ugly,but he wasn’t going to play victim.”
Simmons wasseen as the villain in Philadelphia anyway,where fans assume ownership over highly compensated athletes. “It’s not like the team paid him,” says the sportswriter Pompey,“it’s like,‘We paid him,so he owesus’.” Simmons sold papers and led the nightly news,too. “The only thing missing was a TV crew waiting outside his house. I’ve never seen that happen to another athlete.”
Untangling the treatment he engenders is complex. Is he too selfish off the court and too unselfish on it? Is he that spoilt sportsman who’s unwilling to work on his weaknesses and too brittle when it comes to criticism? Or did we gauge his talent all wrong in the beginning – “the best player in the world” – and set him up to fail? And would we judge him differently if he was dominating? Answering is like interpreting a Rorschach ink blot:one person stares at the list of combustible moments and sees a procession of draining trials and tribulations,while the next sees a series of self-inflicted dramas.
Young men tend not to discuss such things with their parents,but late last year his mum moved to the US anyway. “There is this perception that if you enjoy all the good stuff,you’ve gotta be prepared for the bad stuff,but this level of relentless hatred was totally disproportionate,” argues Julie Simmons. “I got to a point where I was so enraged,because I felt what they were doing was dangerous and ill-informed and just wrong. It almost became a sport – to pile on and make a joke about it,make a joke of him,but he’s a person. He’s my son.”
In February 2022 Simmons was finallytraded to the Brooklyn Nets,to be part of a hoped-for “super team”. He immediately called his mum. “He literally broke down over the phone – ‘Mum,I’m going to Brooklyn’ – and I could hear it in his voice,” she says. “I could hear him take a breath. I could tell he was having a moment. I said,‘Ben,put it all behind you,honey,’ but,of course,nothing gets put behind you.”
Aback injury came next. Living in New York,he went to run upstairs one day and felt two of the lowest vertebrae in his spine – the L4 and L5 – give way. The pain was immediate. “My whole right side just dropped. I lay down in bed and couldn’t move. Nerve pain all down my leg into my calf. I had a dead foot,dragging my right,which was numb.”
The injury was met with derision,and accusations of faking – until a diagnosis in late March confirmed the injuries. Simmons is philosophical about such distrust. “Maybe people don’t know me because I don’t show them my life?” he wonders. “There are going to be haters anyway – I’m not going to try to prove anything to them. If you don’t believe me,you don’t believe me – that’s on you. It shouldn’t be up to me to convince you otherwise.”
He gathered strength slowly,until he was close to playing in a crucial final against the Boston Celtics in April. “I was supposed to play,” he confirms. “And the day before the game we’re playing 5 on 5 and 4 on 4,and I’m like,‘Let me play one more game,’ because it just wasn’t right. I wasn’t moving the way I move. I felt something in my back,it locked up quickly. I woke up the next day – which is what tells you how you really feel – and I couldn’t move. There was no way.”
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A storyline congealed – Simmons chickens out,deserts team – and he was publicly pulverised. NBA legend Reggie Miller told him to “#ManUp”,and Shaq agreed:“In the hood,we called this a punk move.” ESPN analyst Stephen A. Smith ranted that Simmons was the most selfish player in the league:“Nobody is worse than Ben Simmons! Ben Simmons might also be the weakest,most pathetic excuse for a professional athlete we have ever seen in not just American history but the history of sport,” he roared. “He’s a disgrace.”
A spine specialist thought otherwise,seeing the need for immediate surgery,showing Simmons an image of liquid being squeezed out of his herniated disc onto the nerve. He went under the knife in Los Angeles in May,walked out of surgery feeling immediate relief. “No pain,” he recalls. “I could feel my foot again. I could feel my glute trying to activate.”
Recovery and rehabilitation involved everything from a breathing machine to gruelling core exercises like 15-minute bridges. “I knew I needed to bust my ass,” he says,“because if I’m slacking I’m not going to be where I want to be,and everyone that’s talking shit now can be like,‘Yeah,see,we were right.’ ”
But the missed final in April followed him all the way to August,when rumours emerged that teammates had messaged Simmons in a WhatsApp group saying they needed him to play that game,and that Simmons left the group,ghosting his peers. “Let me show you that,” he says,opening his phone and presenting for inspection the chat that he was supposed to have quit. “Look,nothing there. People had been leaving the group for a month. No one was even talking in it anyway. That’s just part of the bullshit.”
Simmons began feeling like himself only recently,finally hitting his top court speed (31 kilometres per hour) and finding his vision within the shifting geometry of the floor. Theseason began a fortnight ago,and his start has been shaky,yet he insists he’s figuring out how best to buttress the talent of Nets superstars Kevin Durant and Kyrie Irving,while enjoying locker-room camaraderie with fellow Aussie Patty Mills.
“Patty knows how I operate. We speak the same language,” Simmons says. “He’s helped me build mental practices:‘What do you do when you’re feeling great?’ or ‘When you’re not feeling great,what actions do you take?’ I had isolated myself for a year. I wasn’t on social media. I wanted to have peace and be by myself and reset,because I needed it. But I stuck with therapy,too,because I think everyone should have that outlet.”
He’s doing the work. Nets fans,however,are probably more interested in him working on his jump shot and free throws. Walking through Brooklyn to a preseason game,coach Steve Nash confirms that Simmons is doing exactly that – with a rider. “What makes Ben special is his ability to play-make for others – defending,rebounding,transition. Ben can do a lot of the dirty work – deflections,steals,pushing the pace.”
Nash – who by the time of publication was sacked by the Nets,only a fortnight into an inconsistent season – basically summarises everything everyone has ever said about Simmons:he does things that gargantuan bodies aren’t supposed to do. “It’s my job to give him a platform to show that versatility,” Nash says. “Ben never has to take a shot for the Nets.”
All he need do – apparently – is get to the basket,and the free-throw line. And when he reaches that “charity stripe” – where Nash himself once shot with 90 per cent accuracy (and Simmons shoots at 60 per cent) – what then? “I just want him to have confidence up there,not worry about makes and misses. We have to take the risk off the table for him. It can’t be all or nothing. We need to give him that mentality:Get to the line as much as you can.”
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And so Simmons is doing his extras,building muscle memory into his routine –bounce twice,spin it,shoot – while the world watches. During a recent open-air practice,the Nets squad had a shooting competition – and Simmons won. He beat the entire team. Yet that same session,he also tossed a casual shot at the ring and missed everything. An airball. Guess which moment went viral?
Such scrutiny makes it hard not to ask what will happen this season if those early buckets don’t fall – if he throws more bricks than swishes. Or doesn’t shoot at all. “We’re looked at as superheroes,which is fine,but there comes a point where …” His voice trails off. “Not everybody deals with the same pressures,and not everyone deals with pressure in the same way. People are going to go through things in life,whether they say something out loud or not. I guess I don’t mind saying out loud:‘I’ve been through things.’ ”
Ben Simmons can’t see it,but there’s a grey and red bug trudging grimly up his abdomen,like a sherpa on K-12. It’s a spotted lanternfly,an invasive pest that New Yorkers are urged to squish on sight,and it’s seeking sanctuary inside a bedazzled hole in his designer T-shirt. “Oh,shit!” Simmons says,flicking it onto the balcony of his new apartment,and crushing it under his size-14s.
Simmons currently rents in Tribeca,but right now we’re touring his newly purchased crib in the Dumbo neighbourhood of Brooklyn,a 10-minute drive from Barclays Centre,where he trains and plays. The eight-bedroom space is a construction site,so he’s holding (not wearing) a white hard hat,and the floors are covered in cardboard to stop workers scuffing the surface. Simmons prefaces an array of questions for the project manager with the word “question”,as in “Question:Has this floor sold out – will I like my neighbours?” and “Question:What about speakers and stuff?”
The reported asking price was $US13 million – not an insignificant piece of real estate alongside his $US17.5 million mansion in Los Angeles. But Simmons doesn’t want to talk about money. Fair enough. Consumption invites criticism. While injured this year,people joked that he was probably out driving – a reference to his car collection. He rolls up today in a rare Porsche 918 Spyder,but could just as easily have driven his Mercedes-Benz G Wagon or electric Hummer. He drives everywhere. A Chevy Suburban drives with him,too,a security team there both to protect him and to park his $2 million ride. “Some people think you don’t need security,like it’s a look or something,but I never want to feel like I’m in a situation where I could have had security there and didn’t.” The starting price for the 5740 Patek Philippe watch he’s wearing,after all,is about $200,000. “People are robbing people for a lot less.”
We speak during September’s New York Fashion Week,and Simmons was all over it. He especially loved the runway show for Marni,a high-end street label gravitating towards unisex pieces. “But I’m not wearing dresses,” he says,smiling. “I’m not Harry Styles.” He sets tongues wagging anyway. After posing in everything from Dior knitwear to a green lambskin leather jacket and matching shorts from Prada,one publication called him a “style icon”,but that was the exception. The standard critique? “Green one day,orange the next,got on pink shades,looking like Zoolander!” (How dare he?) The clothes,cars and exotic pets (including a piranha) feed a central perception that Simmons is a pay-cheque player,here for the limelight and spoils. “What am I supposed to do?” he responds,palms up. “Not collect the cheque? Not spend the cheque?”
The clothes most important to him are the ones he gives away. Simmons’ eldest sister,Melissa,runs his community and social-impact work (Ben Simmons Family Foundation),which includes everything from youth leadership programs to partnerships with organisations like Operation Warm (giving winter coats to kids who need them). Last year,he was forced to continue the latter anonymously. “We were a little bit worried that people in Philly might not wear the coat if they knew it was from Ben Simmons,” Melissa admits,noting that a few kids even dropped technology scholarships because his name was attached. “That was heart-wrenching.”
Still,Simmons lends his dollars and name to an array of substantive social justice programs. He was an executive producer on the 2019Adam Goodes documentaryThe Australian Dream – “It’s not always easy to have somebody’s back – I wanted to have Adam’s back.” And there is his#DoMore project,which harnessed high-profile Australians,including soccer star Samantha Kerr and actor Hugh Jackman,to have conversations about racism during the global Black Lives Matter movement.
“I’m by no means an NBA expert,but you get a sense of the noise around Ben,” says diversity and inclusion campaigner Rana Hussain,who worked with Simmons on #DoMore. “He wanted to channel that exorbitant attention he gets into something useful. How mature is that?”
Then there’s his annual basketball camps,working with groups like Helping Hoops Future to open up spots for public housing kids. Julie Simmons remembers a father approaching her at one camp. His son had done a project book about the NBA:could he show it to Ben? She took the boy to the break room to see Simmons,who flipped through the pages enthusiastically. When he learnt the boy’s favourite player was LeBron James,Simmons started idly scrolling on his phone,and within seconds had LeBron on screen,FaceTiming the star-struck boy. “For me,that’s everything,” Simmons says. “There’s no better feeling than seeing a kid smile,giving them a place to have an outlet and express themselves.”
A final critique of Simmons,of course,is that he hasn’t suited up for the Boomers since joining the NBA. The 2016 Rio Olympics fell during his rookie season,and while he wanted to play in Tokyo 2020,that was the moment his life entered freefall. “I was in the middle of the shit,” he says. “Of course I wanted to go out there and play with Dante Exum and Joe Ingles and Patty Mills – those are my guys. But there’s only so much to say:I was in a bad place,and I didn’t play. Do I want to play for Australia? One hundred per cent. Will I one day? One hundred per cent. I’m going to the Olympics. It’s not a question – it’s a dream of mine. But I’m also not going to let people tell me when and how I do things.” Paris 2024? He’s there.
At 26,Simmons is entering his sporting prime. He can picture himself by mid-season,running the floor in big games against big opponents,doing what he’s supposed to do. “You’re in your happy place. You feel good. You feel right. You feel present in the moment,” he says,sipping that soda water,above the city streets. “For two years I feel like I lost that,and was going through the motions. But right now,I feel incredible. It’s almost like heaven.”
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Of course,that was two weeks before the new season began. His performances since then have been erratic,and quiet. Just this week he missed two games with knee soreness. Another setback. Maybe that’s why he also urged patience (“It won’t happen overnight”) and maybe what looked like defiant confidence (“I do things not many people can do”) was something more like positive self-talk. He doesn’t need bravado right now. He needs belief.
His challenge becomes setting new expectations instead of living up to the old ones. Like that famous marketing slogan,developed by a branding consultant around the time he was about to enter the league:Ben Simmons is next. The next LeBron. The next big thing. The next basketball story. It begs a new question:Ben Simmons … What next?
“It’s all about the win,” he answers. “Everything changes once you start winning,and then those people with things to say suddenly have nothing left to say. It’s that easy and that hard.”
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