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The Brooklyn Nets traded for Ben Simmons in hopes he would help them get closer to winning a championship. Now they just hope he actually comes onto the pitch at some point. After appearing to return in Game 4 of Brooklyn’s first-round series against Boston in what would have been his Nets and season debut, Simmons was surprisingly ruled out after informing team officials that the herniated disc in his back had turned sore after practice.
Unfortunately, Simmons’ herniated disc will now require surgery — a microdiscectomy procedure, to be exact — to ease the pain in the disc, the Nets announced Wednesday.
Simmons underwent successful surgery on Thursday and he will have a three-week recovery period before beginning rehab, the Nets said. ESPN’s Adrian Wojnarowski reported that Simmons is expected to need three to four months of recovery time and should return “well before training camp”, but at this point we should probably all be in a wait-and-see mode. According to The Athletic’s Shams Charania, Simmons told the Nets that “he has a mental block, partly due to last summer’s post-season, that is creating stress that could serve as a trigger for his back problems.”
So this is not just a physical situation.
Simmons “added that he wants to play basketball and play for the Nets while he works on solutions to his well-being,” according to Charania. Simmons is obviously a person first. He’s struggling mentally and he needs and should be given the time he needs to process it. Hopefully he can find a way to do that.
After that, Simmons is a basketball player with a bad back. A basketball player the Nets traded James Harden for. One can wonder if the Nets knew the full extent of Simmons’ back problem when they made the trade, but that’s water under the bridge now. Going forward, the Nets are hoping Simmons will regain his mental and physical shape in time for a fresh start next season.