‘Damaged’: Inside the shocking fall of Australian basketball’s ultimate $267 million what-if
Boomers four-time Olympian Shane Heal has doubts if former No. 1 draft pick Ben Simmons possesses the “passion” and “work ethic” to revive a career that looked destined for greatness.
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The clock is ticking on Ben Simmons’ time in the NBA.
The prodigiously talented Simmons will earn a staggering guaranteed $A60 million next season but that might be it.
It would be one hell of a punctuation mark on a career once destined for greatness that’s now on life support.
Boomers four-time Olympian Shane Heal doubts the former No. 1 draft pick possesses the “passion” and “work ethic” to revive his career.
Some NBA officials question his “killer instinct” and view him as “damaged goods” but this shouldn’t surprise anyone.
Simmons’ career path has been littered with red flags and warning signs.
None were bigger than in mid-February of 2019, following his first NBA All-Star appearance in Charlotte.
He was in a mood to celebrate, and while key members urged him to keep working on his game he blew them off and headed to the Bahamas.
It’s a moment that insiders say personifies the guard’s unwillingness to sacrifice to become better.
The Melbourne-born guard is regarded as the most gifted player Australia has produced, but a poor attitude combined with injuries has the 27-year-old in danger of being run out of the world’s best basketball league. He’s been recently ruled out for the season with a lingering back problem.
The Brooklyn Nets, on Friday, confirmed the banged up Aussie “underwent a successful microscopic partial discectomy to alleviate the nerve impingement in his lower back.” The team say the guard should be fully fit for training camp.
Injuries and mental health concerns have restricted him to just 57 games for Brooklyn in the past two seasons, with NBA sources declaring the polarising guard doesn’t have the right attitude to succeed.
They also believe the injury-ravaged Australian hasn’t shown enough to warrant another super max contract after the 2024-25 season.
Simmons is approaching the final season of a five-year deal worth a whopping AU$267 million, but his broken body and mindset has Heal justifiably questioning if he has the fortitude to save his career.
“Ben can return to his best, but I’m going to say that he won’t due to a mixture of things,” Heal said.
“He has never been a great player. I think he has been a good player that had the potential to be anything, but he has displayed a lack of passion and desire to want to be great.
“When you want to be great, you don’t shoot 33 per cent from the free-throw line, because you are spending all your time in the gym.
“You don’t deteriorate from the free-throw line every year in your career. That’s just work, the hours you put in to make sure you get it done when the bright lights are on.
“I don’t think based on everything that I’ve heard that Ben has ever put that time in, probably since he got his payday, to want to take his game to another level.”
WRONG PRIORITIES
Simmons’ first NBA All-Star Weekend appearance provided a telling and troubling insight into the enigmatic superstar’s attitude and commitment to fulfilling his enormous potential.
After dropping 10 points, 7 assists and 6 rebounds for Team LeBron in a 178-164 win over Team Giannis, Simmons was holding court at a private party in an exclusive club hosted by his management team at the time Klutch Sports.
Surrounded by friends and family and a host of NBA All-Stars in the Klutch Sports stable the party vibe was upbeat until the conversation turned to Simmons’ training habits.
Certain members of his personal team wanted Simmons to return to Philly the next morning and get to work on his flawed jump shot.
The conversation became animated as they tried to convince Simmons not to fly to the Bahamas with his celebrity girlfriend.
Things got heated enough to engage the attention of stunned onlookers.
There have also been concerns about Simmons’ inner circle for years, including a defamation legal dispute between his sister Olivia and half-brother Sean Tribe in 2021.
It’s felt the Aussie needs people to drop truth bombs on him, but he has received a free pass in that department and it’s led to constant excuses.
EARLY DRIVE
Years before Simmons reached the NBA’s bright lights, he had his sights set on a professional basketball career. Father, Dave, who played 338 NBL games for four clubs, has fond memories of his gifted son’s razor sharp vision.
The year was 2003 and Simmons, only seven, was completing his daily hoops session alongside his mother Julie in a Newcastle gym.
With every jump shot or lay-up, he barked orders at his mother to promptly collect the rebound so he could fire off another attempt.
“C’mon mum, faster,” Simmons says, clapping.
Watching on, Simmons Sr knew he had something special on his hands.
“Ben was clapping like he was a professional, but that was the focus he had,” Dave recalled.
This competitive drive helped Simmons excel in the junior ranks in Newcastle and later for the Knox Raiders in Melbourne.
He stepped up his commitment to hoops in his high school years, brushing aside his interest in AFL to focus solely on basketball during stints at Whitefriars College and Box Hill Senior Secondary College.
Simmons starred to secure a scholarship with the Australian Institute of Sport in 2012, before being selected to represent the national Under 17s side at the World Championships as a 15-year-old.
WARNING SIGNS
Simmons moved to the United States the following year in 2013 to attend Montverde Academy in Florida – and according multiple sources – this is when Ben’s attitude started to waver.
Suddenly, an element of ego and self-entitlement crept into his mindset, and it became a real issue during his one-and-done year at LSU College in 2015.
Simmons vocally expressed his disdain with the college system, which stipulates athletes must have certain grades to play sport.
The Aussie refused to attend classes, because “he wasn’t there to get an education”, and it resulted in him being ineligible for awards because his GPA fell below the minimum standard.
Simmons also took aim at the NCAA for not paying students, but leveraging off their profile for profit.
“The NCAA is really f– ked up,” Simmons said in the documentary, One & Done, per ESPN.com’s Myron Medcalf. “Everybody’s making money except the players. We’re the ones waking up early as hell to be the best teams and do everything they want us to do and then the players get nothing. They say education, but if I’m there for a year, I can’t get much education.
“I don’t have a voice. … I don’t get paid to do it. Don’t say I’m an amateur and make me take pictures and sign stuff and go make hundreds of thousands of millions of dollars off one person. … I’m going off on the NCAA.”
It came at a time when Simmons had his attitude questioned in the lead up to the 2016 draft. Respected ESPN draft analyst Jonathan Givony said the Aussie showed a lack of competitiveness which raised questions about his character as a player, despite going on to become the number one pick.
Givony also confirmed Simmons had alienated many coaches and officials back home in Australia with his move to America for high school.
“Australian players and coaches who have been around him don’t speak about him in flattering terms, calling him ‘the Yank’ to highlight how different he is compared with most of the players from that country, and perhaps highlight how much moving to the United States at a young age and immersing himself in the AAU world has shaped him,” he noted.
“Those who know him best say he needs things to revolve around him on and off the court and that he’s often been close-minded to coaching or instruction.
“At times, it appears he only passes when guaranteed an assist and chases home-run plays at inopportune times in search of a highlight. Simmons seems to value those things over winning.”
THE HYPE AND HOPE
Despite some negative reviews, Simmons went on to secure the No. 1 pick in the draft, before tragedy hit when a fractured foot ruled him out for the entire 2016-17 season.
Fortunately, Simmons made a full recovery, and he dominated in his official first season with the Sixers to win the NBA’s Rookie of the Year award.
He joined the game’s greats – Oscar Robertson and Magic Johnson – in the record books in March of his maiden season as the third rookie in NBA history to reach 1000 points, 500 rebounds and 500 assists.
The following season the gun guard became an NBA All-Star – the first Australian to achieve the milestone – before First All-NBA and All-Defensive selections came in his third season.
The future for Simmons appeared bright, but the cracks were starting to appear.
TURNING POINT
Simmons looked set for a lifelong career in Philadelphia, but these aspirations came crashing down following one poor decision during the 76ers’ second-round playoff exit against the Atlanta Hawks in 2020-21.
The Aussie star opted to pass up an open dunk – a play star Sixers big man Joel Embiid later blamed as being the turning point of the game.
Then Philadelphia coach Doc Rivers also couldn’t guarantee Simmons could be a point guard on a championship team. When asked, Rivers said: “I don’t even know how to answer that right now”.
This response, and other factors, prompted Simmons to ask for a trade, despite having four seasons left on his contract.
He was even willing to miss training camp and pre-season games in a bid to accelerate his trade, which sparked a one-season standoff between Ben and the 76ers until he was traded to Brooklyn in February, 2022.
Both parties stood their ground – and it resulted in Simmons sitting on the sidelines and becoming the most fined player in NBA history – with suggestions he had surpassed $10 million by the end of 2021.
Heal believes this was the exact moment when Simmons’ career forever changed.
“That to me was a really big dent in Ben’s confidence about where he was going,” Heal said.
“He then didn’t play the whole next season after that playoff exit and he had a heap of injuries.
“He has never really regained that confidence or an ability to play at a high level since.”
BIG DOLLARS GO TO THE HEAD?
Heal also pinpoints the day Simmons received his max contract payday in July, 2019 as a major turning point.
The Boomers great isn’t saying the five-year deal wasn’t justified based on form, but the influx of dollars didn’t help with the Australian’s drive to become better.
“It hasn’t felt like he has had the same motivation or passion since to be able to deliver,” he said.
“That might be a coincidence, but when you’re making $60 million a year and only playing 15 games in a season and not doing the work in the off-season, something is wrong.
“Some people just don’t have that drive when they are earning the type of money that Ben is.
“Other people like LeBron can make all the money in the world, but they’re still motivated to deliver results and they’re not satisfied.
“But we haven’t seen that from Ben and it comes down to passion because that’s the starting point to succeed.”
REAL VALUE
At his fittest and finest, Simmons is worth every cent of his max NBA contract.
Sadly, his form and lack of court time no longer warrants the big dollars.
It’s why NBA officials are starting to believe that Simmons should be paid on reality, not potential.
Brooklyn will have to absorb the final AU$60 million left on his five-year deal, even if he doesn’t return to the court next season, but the Nets are reportedly weighing up buying out the guard’s contract.
This could allow a rival club to pay half of Simmons’ salary, but the problem is not many clubs are prepared to pay a reduced salary for the troubled Aussie given his broken body and fractured form.
It leaves the Nets star in a precarious position, unless he can recover from his back injury and regain the form that saw him become revered across the NBA.
BOOMERS DOUBT
The Boomers culture has long been about the team before self. From pioneering players Lindsay Gaze and Phil Smyth to NBA talents like Andrew Bogut, Patty Mills and Matthew Dellavedova, there is an element of sacrificing to don the green and gold.
Selfless traits like playing for free or giving up your off-season for the greater good of your nation.
Simmons hasn’t displayed the same appetite, and according to Heal, it’s why he believes the injured Brooklyn star won’t ever play for Australia.
“Ben hasn’t shown that he wants to give up an off-season – not once,” he said about Simmons, who has had chances to play at three tournaments for the Boomers in 2016 Olympics in Rio, 2019 World Cup and 2021 Tokyo Games, before opting out.
“It’s why I always laugh when people say this is the year Simmons plays for the Boomers.
“I’m always the one to say that I can’t believe people think it will happen, because it would take a massive change in mindset for Ben to actually want to go through that process.”
Simmons also rubbed veteran Australian players up the wrong way during camps in the lead-up to the 2014 and 2019 World Cups for training within himself.
If you talk to others around the traps, Ben’s omission from Australia’s 2014 World Cup team in favour of more experienced players is a major reason why he hasn’t played for the Boomers at a major tournament.
The cut by then coach Andrej Lemanis shattered an 18-year-old Simmons so much at the time that he took to Twitter to express his disappointment.
Heal understands why the decision hurts, but insists it can’t be blamed for Ben’s Boomers absence.
“You can’t buy the Lemanis stuff – that was 10 years ago,” he said.
“Ben has had another four or five opportunities to represent his country, but again I think it comes down to the lack of passion.
“He doesn’t truly have a love for the game to play when he isn’t getting paid or sacrificing his own holiday time to be going away and working for nothing.
“You only do that because you love the game and representing your country, with the camaraderie and the collective mindset of trying to win medals. That’s why you are willing to go into Australian camps fatigued following a long season.”
THE FUTURE
If Simmons can recover from his latest back injury – and there is a belief he can – there is no reason why he can’t return to the NBA and make an impact.
In the end, though, the level at which he plays is very much on Ben’s shoulders.
Heal argues that Simmons is settled as he is and doesn’t have the determined drive like LeBron or the late Kobe Bryant to become great.
“I see it as a wasted opportunity, but Ben obviously has other things that are more important in his life compared to being the best player he can be,” Heal reasons.
“He is going to set his family up for generations to come and it’s more important to him to be able to rest on that.
“He has had opportunities financially that 99 per cent of the population will never have and he is obviously satisfied with that.”
Time will tell, but the ball is in Simmons’ court to reignite a career that promised so much.
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Originally published as ‘Damaged’: Inside the shocking fall of Australian basketball’s ultimate $267 million what-if
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