Will fates of Ben Simmons and Dariq Whitehead determine Brooklyn Nets season success?
Photo by David L. Nemec/NBAE via Getty Images
Is it too much to hope for? Sure but it’s probably more likely than landing a super star. A lot of off-season discussion among Brooklyn Nets fans has to do with what NBA superstar would be, could be, should be available this summer, but the arrival of a Paul George or Donovan Mitchell is at this point no so likely. There’s questions of whether they’d be available and salary cap/luxury tax issues.
So what about wishing and hoping and planning and dreaming that one of two players lost for the season this spring might return to form? We’re talking about Ben Simmons who’ll be all of 28 come training camp, and/or Dariq Whitehead, who’ll only be 20. Simmons was declared done for the season in late March, two months after Whitehead. Both then underwent surgery for the second time as a Net player, Simmons for a nerve impingement in his back, Whitehead for a stress reaction in his leg. Both have been cleared for basketball activity and both are in Brooklyn, Simmons returning from Miami where he had his surgery in March.
Ben Simmons is back in Brooklyn for the first time since undergoing season ending back surgery on March 14th.Simmons has been rehabbing in Miami since. Nets GM Sean Marks has said Simmons should be able to have a relatively normal offseason in preparation for a healthy next… pic.twitter.com/JRLJoG0ZPb— Billy Reinhardt (@BillyReinhardt) May 2, 2024
Everyone knows the Simmons saga and as Keith Smith of Spotrac wrote this week, Simmons is no longer Ben Simmons basketball player, but “Ben Simmons, expiring contract,” a reference to the $40.3 million he’s owed this season. But in the Simmons camp there is some hope he can return to what he showed at the beginning of last season, just not the bravado that raised expectations too high a year ago. Although Simmons did not look like the All-NBA guard he had been in Philadelphia, the 6’10” point guard played just 15 games last season. In 23.9 minutes per game, he averaged 6.1 points, 7.9 rebounds and 5.7 assists per game on 58.1% shooting from the floor. He didn’t attempt a three.
“All signs point towards him being available for the start of next season,” Sean Marks told reporters after Jordi Fernández introductory press conference. “With Ben it’s very unfortunate, we looked like we were a completely different team when Ben was healthy out there. So it’s paramount that we get him back and we get him healthy.”
That sound like standard fare, perhaps even damning with faint praise but behind the scenes, Simmons camp and the Nets organization are optimistic and are working to get Simmons back in form. League insiders tell NetsDaily that there’s currently no plan to dump him, to waive and stretch him to save cap space, etc. Both sides instead want to give it a shot for better or worse.
The situation with Whitehead is of course different. The Nets knew going into last season that the 6’7” wing was going to be a work in progress. He’d had leg surgery in August 2022 before he ever took the court for Duke and then again in June 2023.
The organization had hoped for a slow recovery in the G League and maybe some minutes in Brooklyn later in the season but Whitehead, the second youngest player in the NBA last season behind only G.G. Jackson never got untracked and he won’t up playing only 12 minutes in two games with the Nets before he was shut down for the season and underwent surgery. Similarly, he was limited in G League play. He averaged 8.8 points in 18.6 minutes per game for the Long Island Nets playing in only 17 of a possible 50 games.
At the time he said he hoped for the best … this time.
“We don’t rush things. Take our time and come back right this time and do it the right way,” he told reporters.
Marks offered this appraisal of Whitehead’s situation at the Fernandez presser.
“Dariq (Whitehead) should play in summer league, should be available in summer league,” Marks said. “Whether or not he plays the entire summer league or not, that’ll be TBD. But, the plan right now is he’s in the gym every day. He was in here this morning, so hopefully, he’s getting himself ready and robust enough to play in summer league.”
Since then, Whitehead has been seen working out at HSS, as chipper as usual.
“I feel like this is a summer for me to really show guys going into next season what I can do,” he said in talking to the Nets Rookie Diaries. “This is the first summer I’ve had since high school to be able to just get healthy and train, so I’m really excited for that and I’m ready to come and show people in summer league what kind of player the Brooklyn Nets got.”
Brokklyn of course wants the same. Whitehead after all was the nation’s highest ranked scholastic player in 2022 at Montverde Academy before being recruited by Duke.
The Nets finished seventh this season in games lost to injury, Simmons of course being the biggest reason why.
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