‘Unthinkable’: Ben Simmons arrives at $252 million crossroads

Ben Simmons is an NBA free agent and noises coming from around the NBA show he still has some lifelines left to save his career.

It was an oversight that, once unthinkable, was completely understandable.

Lost in the wash-up of the obituaries of the Los Angeles Clippers’ 2025 playoff run after last weekend’s Game 7 capitulation against Denver – and there were many of them – was discussion about the future of a player who has gone from number one draft pick and rookie of the year to being waived by one team and signed by another to become a free agent.

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But that’s the lot of Ben Simmons, who didn’t hit the court for the Clippers in the final two games of the Nuggets series after playing primarily as a spot-minute back-up centre assigned to three-time league MVP Nikola Jokic on the occasions where he made a brief cameo.

Which begs the question: what now?

Simmons’ freefall from his 2017-18 rookie of the year accolades and three All-Star appearances in Philadelphia to his playoff flame-outs and subsequent trade to Brooklyn before being bought out by the Nets in February has been well documented, and benefits no repeating here.

Signing with the title-aspiring Clippers once he cleared waivers in Brooklyn on February 10, the 28-year-old’s contributions on a veteran team were modest, but appreciated.

Now comes the hard part: working out where the Australian ends up next.

In 18 games with the Clippers, Simmons averaged 2.9 points, 3.8 rebounds and 3.1 assists per game in 16 minutes a night; in the playoffs, those contributions dwindled to 0.8 points, 1.2 rebounds and 0.8 assists in eight minutes a night before he was benched as the series reached its crescendo.

Simmons (right) was a spectator as the Clippers lost to Denver on the road in Game 7 to end their season in the first round. (AP Photo/David Zalubowski)

His 2024-25 averages in 51 games between Brooklyn and LA – 5 points, 4.7 rebounds and 5.6 assists – pale into comparison to his career marks of 13.1ppg, 7.4rpg and 7.2apg in 383 games.

Were it not for his promising past, Simmons would be seen as a perfectly acceptable fringe NBA rotation player who can be additive to a competing team despite his obvious offensive shortcomings.

While he’s a shadow of his former statistical self, there’ll be a role somewhere for a player who turns 29 in July, and possesses the same imposing speed, defensive nous and passing ability that once marked him as a star.

Those days look over, but is Simmons still an NBA player teams will covet, if only on their terms? An Australian basketball legend and prominent American former NBA front-office staffer say yes.

Where can that be? There’s a handful of teams who could benefit from what Simmons can offer.

A CLIPPERS RETURN?

Simmons was optimistic he could contribute to the Clippers’ post-season push when he arrived in LA in February, right around the time the team began to take off.

With star Kawhi Leonard ramping up after missing the first half of the season rehabilitating a knee injury, former league MVP James Harden assuming more responsibility after Paul George left for Philadelphia in free agency and the likes of promising centre Ivica Zubac and veteran guard Norman Powell enjoying career-best campaigns, Simmons felt he could make an impact, pending his ability to manage the back issues that had plagued a considerable part of his time in Brooklyn.

“I felt wanted, and that’s something you want to feel when you go to work and you want to compete at a high level,” he said in his introductory press conference after rejecting overtures from Cleveland and Houston to sign in LA.

“I see the floor, I want to get my guys going, get them easy buckets, control the pace, and then on the defensive end, I want to be a dog. I want to be able to get stops and put that pressure on the ball.”

Simmons played as LA’s back-up centre - guarding Nikola Jokic - in the first round. (Photo by MATTHEW STOCKMAN / GETTY IMAGES NORTH AMERICA / Getty Images via AFP)

Simmons made contributions as the Clippers rose steadily from the play-in bracket to the Western Conference’s fifth seed, a road win over Golden State on the final day of the regular season locking in a match-up with Jokic and the Nuggets.

It was a series where the Clippers could have considered themselves unfortunate to not win the first four games; a slew of late turnovers saw them cough up Game 1 on the road in Denver in overtime, while after demolishing the Nuggets in Game 3 by 34 points, they lost Game 4 on a miraculous buzzer-beating alley-oop dunk by Aaron Gordon, who sealed a two-point road victory when he caught Jokic’s Hail Mary three-pointer at the buzzer.

After the home teams held sway in Games 5 and 6, Denver ran out 120-101 winners to advance to a West semifinal meeting with Oklahoma City in a Game 7 that wasn’t as close as the final margin, the Nuggets leading by as many as 35 points as Simmons didn’t get off the bench for a second straight game.

After an airball when being lightly defended by Jokic early in Game 5, Clippers coach Tyronn Lue pulled the plug on the Australian, turning to French veteran Nicolas Batum to play the non-Zubac minutes against Denver’s star centre to better balance LA’s offensive arsenal.

Ben Simmons COOKED Nikola Jokic 🤯🔥 pic.twitter.com/7rpTJxZhZW

— BricksCenter (@BricksCenter) April 30, 2025

With the Clippers one of the league’s older teams – only Philadelphia and Phoenix have an older average age than LA’s 27.4 years and only Derrick Jones and Zubac (both 28) are under 30 from the Clippers’ core – LA faces an off-season of probable stability, with 12 players on the roster under contract and limited options on tap to add new pieces from the draft, the team holding no first-round picks and selecting 30th and 49th overall in June.

Of LA’s free agents, only Simmons, fellow Australian Patty Mills and reserve forward Amir Coffey don’t have a player or team option.

Speaking on Andrew Bogut’s ‘Rogue Bouges’ podcast, former Dallas Mavericks director of player development and player trainer Mike Procopio – a frequent critic of the Australian in recent years – feels Simmons can be a contributor to the Clippers going forward despite his obvious warts.

“At times, I thought he was okay for them,” Procopio said.

“I think there is a spot for him … for that team as well, because they need it. They need guys who just know how to play, high basketball IQ, who can pass, have size and length. He does have a high basketball IQ … it’s just, where’s his competitive spirit?

“Does he have that left? Only he knows the answer to that, and he’s been flatlining that the last few years, being a really competitive type of player. If he could put that together, put one good year together, I think he could get this thing back on track a little bit.

“Will he go back to what people thought he was? Absolutely not. Can he be a guy that could be a rotation player, maybe even move into a starting spot in a couple of years? Possibly. At 28 years old, there’s still plenty of time left.

“I’m not going to break the bank to keep Ben Simmons, but if he wants a one [year] plus one [year option contract], where if he plays well he could opt out and then go somewhere else … I think the Clippers kicked the tyres since acquiring him, and I think it would be good to keep him and ramp him up a little bit.

“I do like his skill level, I just think he’s a lack of a competitor.”

WHERE ELSE MIGHT SIMMONS FIT?

If not in LA, then where could Simmons be of value?

It’s a process of attraction by subtraction, and his willingness to accept a role in a franchise with winning as a priority.

Simmons’ stint in Brooklyn – which traded away key pieces throughout the 2024-25 season to bolster their draft lottery odds and stuttered to a 26-56 record after winning half of their first 20 games – suggests rebuilding teams who are prioritising younger talent aren’t a great fit.

Denver, who gave minutes to 36-year-old back-up centre DeAndre Jordan in the series against the Clippers, would be a good fit stylistically as a small-ball big who can facilitate. Defensively, Simmons would fit in with Orlando, which allowed a league-low 105.5 points per game this season and is ascending.

Milwaukee, pending the fall-out from its first-round loss to Indiana, combined with Damian Lillard missing most of next season with an Achilles’ tear and Giannis Antetokounmpo’s future a topic of discussion, bears mentioning. Golden State – where Simmons has been linked in the past as a cut-price version of pass-first, shooting-averse playmaking forward Draymond Green – would be an interesting stylistic fit, despite Simmons’ history with Warriors’ mid-season acquisition Jimmy Butler when the pair were teammates with the 76ers.

Wherever Simmons ends up, it won’t be for a significant payday for a player who has career earnings of over US$163 million ($252M AUD), per NBA website Basketball Reference.

Simmons signed for US$755,826 ($1.2M AUD) for the Clippers after his buyout from Brooklyn. The veteran minimum for players of seven years’ experience like Simmons was US$2.8 million ($4.34M AUD) for the 2024-25 season.

On his ‘Rogue Bouges’ podcast, Andrew Bogut feels the Simmons story can change if he can get over his free throw woes – he attempted just seven in 23 total games in LA compared to 5.4 per game in his 2018-19 Philadelphia heyday – which is something Bogut himself struggled with throughout his own NBA career.

“[Defensively] he’s long, he’s athletic, and that’s where he really caused a lot of problems in Philly,” Bogut said.

“On the offensive end is where everyone’s waiting for that old Ben Simmons aggressiveness to come back, which all stems from the free throws in my opinion. As a guy who has been through the free throw yips at different times, it can affect your aggressiveness, and I see that in Ben.

“I see that limiting his aggressiveness so much so that he won’t shoot that lay-up … if there’s a [defensive] body nearby, he won’t even attempt a lay-up because he doesn’t want the chance of potentially being fouled and getting to the free throw line. That’s something that an off-season sports psych [psychologist] … I don’t know, but he’s got to get that back.

“That, to me, is everything. That’s the hardest thing. He’s still a fantastic basketball player. I think he just needs to get that part [fixed]. With that, his spirit and everything will come back.”

Originally published as ‘Unthinkable’: Ben Simmons arrives at $252 million crossroads