Simmons, 29, played his last NBA game almost a year ago for the Los Angeles Clippers<\/a> on May, 30, 2025, against the Denver Nuggets<\/a>. Since then, the unrestricted free agent danced<\/a> around signing with the New York Knicks<\/a> and became the controlling owner of the South Florida Sails<\/a> (SFS) in the Sport Fishing Championship.<\/p>\n Simmons\u2019 SFS won the 2026 SFC Walker\u2019s Cay Open over the weekend as the club\u2019s site reported<\/a>: \u201cBy the end of the weekend, Capt. Mike King, Brad Adam, Ben Simmons, and co. announced themselves as a force to be reckoned with.\u201d<\/p>\n The three-time NBA All-Star and 2018 Rookie of the Year<\/a> has taken to professional angling like a fish to water in a season that runs from April to October.<\/p>\n He posted to Instagram from the Florida Keys just a couple of days ago that he is spending more time \u201coffline than on the phone\u201d with a picture gallery that didn\u2019t include a basketball.<\/p>\n Simmons earned USD $203.3M (AUD $284M) in a nine-year NBA career of extreme highs and exceptional lows. His Philadelphia 76ers numbers reflected Australia\u2019s first Hall of Fame career, but a single play derailed the then-24-year-old\u2019s meteoric career.<\/p>\n The Sport Fishing Championship overlaps the NBA Draft, Draft Combine, Summer League, free agency, training camp and preseason, and finally bumps up against the start of the 2026-27 NBA season.<\/p>\n At 2.08m, Simmons’ length and playmaking ability were overshadowed by his inability and unwillingness to shoot the ball, which is a liability in the modern NBA. He played just 4:42 minutes in his last NBA contest (Game 5) and was a DNP-coach\u2019s decision in the final two games \u2013 6 and 7 \u2013 against the Nuggets in the first round of the 2025 Playoffs.<\/p>\n Simmons has been warm and even colder with the Australian Boomers<\/a>, playing just twice for the senior national team at the 2013 FIBA Oceania Championships. He has reportedly expressed an interest in trying to earn a spot ahead of the 2027 World Cup and 2028 Olympic Games, but the potential of him joining Josh Giddey<\/a> and Dyson Daniels<\/a> on that roster appears as elusive as a 450-point Blue Marlin.<\/p>\n There is zero chatter about Simmons\u2019 fit on a 2026-27 NBA roster, nor a return to the NBL, unlike Boomers\u2019 legends Patty Mills<\/a> and Joe Ingles<\/a>, more than 10 years his senior, for the 2026-27 season.<\/p>\n Between 2017 and 2021, Simmons was a three-time NBA All-Star (2019\u20132021); All-NBA Third Team (2020); 2-time NBA All-Defensive First Team (2020, 2021); NBA Rookie of the Year (2018); NBA All-Rookie First Team (2018); and NBA steals leader (2020). It came off the back of being a consensus first-team All-American (2016) playing at LSU; USBWA National Freshman of the Year (2016); First-team All-SEC (2016); SEC Freshman of the Year (2016); National high school player of the year (2015); McDonald’s All-American (2015); and First-team Parade All-American (2015).<\/p>\n “I mean, he had all the talent in the world,\u2019\u2019 First Ballot NBA Hall of Famer and NBA champion Dirk Nowitzki said before the start of the 2025-26 season.<\/p>\n \u201cNot quite sure all the stuff that happened there in Philly, but it was disappointing.<\/p>\n \u201cHe was like the rising star there for a long, long time. So we\u2019ll see what happens.<\/p>\n “It\u2019s still early. Sometimes things get picked up later. You just got to stay ready, stay working out.<\/p>\n \u201cThere\u2019s still a bunch of free agents out there that I thought had a chance to be in the league.<\/p>\n “But there\u2019s just unfortunately only so many spots in our league \u2026 hopefully Ben can find a way back in.\u2019\u2019<\/p>\n But in the six months since Nowitzki\u2019s assessment, Simmons has immersed himself deeper into blue water fishing and winning SFC tournaments.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Australian Ben Simmons is winning fishing titles while his NBA future drifts further from view. Australian basketball multi-millionaire…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":679710,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[574],"tags":[64,63,726,85],"class_list":["post-679709","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-basketball","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-basketball","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/679709","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=679709"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/679709\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/679710"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=679709"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=679709"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=679709"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/6a0b91b80e3869454ec86a5f_BenSimmons2.jpg\")
Ben Simmons proudly shows off his latest catch for the South Florida Sails. Photo: Instagram<\/p>\n