{"id":882474,"date":"2026-09-06T20:34:10","date_gmt":"2026-09-06T20:34:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/882474\/"},"modified":"2026-09-06T20:34:10","modified_gmt":"2026-09-06T20:34:10","slug":"ben-simmons-excited-to-resume-nba-career-with-kings","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/882474\/","title":{"rendered":"Ben Simmons ‘Excited’ To Resume NBA Career With Kings"},"content":{"rendered":"

Former No. 1 overall pick Ben Simmons<\/a> agreed<\/a> to a one-year, minimum-salary contract with the Kings on Friday after he didn\u2019t play at all in 2025\/26, having spent some time away from the court and making an effort to get fully healthy.<\/p>\n

\"\"Marc J. Spears of ESPN\u2019s Andscape, one of the reporters who broke the news, suggested<\/a> Simmons would be open to a multiyear stay in Sacramento if things go well in 2026\/27.<\/p>\n

Appearing on Sactown Sports 1140\u2019s The Carmichael Dave Show with Jason Ross, Spears shed a little more light on why the Kings decided to sign Simmons and why the 30-year-old was interested in joining Sacramento, as Frankie Cartocelli of Sactown Sports<\/a> relays.<\/p>\n

Spears hears Simmons played \u201cextremely well\u201d against several NBA players during an Australian senior national team minicamp last month. Evidently that performance caught Sacramento\u2019s attention.<\/p>\n

\u201cOnce he played well in that camp in Australia, that\u2019s when I think (Kings general manager) Scott Perry got really interested,\u201d Spears said.<\/p>\n

According to Spears, Perry traveled to Miami in late August to meet with Simmons and watch him in a private workout, then Simmons flew to the Bay Area last week to work out in Sacramento.<\/p>\n

Spears, who has spent extended time around Simmons over the past year for an unrelated project he\u2019s been working on, said head coach Doug Christie was impressed with Simmons\u2019 performance in that workout in front of the team. He added that Simmons is excited to be in a more low-key environment after previously playing exclusively for big-market franchises.<\/p>\n

\u201cWithin minutes, Doug Christie was like, \u2018I\u2019m good. Let\u2019s get him.\u2019 He looked great,\u2019\u201d Spears said. \u201c\u2026 (Simmons is) really, really happy, and proud, and excited to be a Sacramento King.\u201d<\/p>\n

David Patrick, Simmons\u2019 godfather and former head coach at LSU, joined Matt George of Sactown Sports<\/a> to discuss Simmons\u2019 NBA return, Cartocelli writes.<\/p>\n

Patrick, who\u2019s an assistant with the Australian national team and at Arizona State, said Simmons appears to be past his back injuries \u2014 he underwent surgeries in May 2022 and March 2024 \u2014 and has regained both his confidence and his athleticism.<\/p>\n

\u201cFor me, over the last probably three months, that swagger, that confidence that he once had, was back,\u201d Patrick said. \u201c\u2026 I felt he was back to where he was athletically and mentally from his times at Philly when he was a three-time All-Star.\u201d<\/p>\n

While there has been a perception from the outside that Simmons might be the backup point guard behind rookie Darius Acuff Jr.<\/a>, Patrick said Christie told Simmons to \u201ccome in and be himself\u201d and suggested he\u2019ll have a chance to earn a starting role.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Former No. 1 overall pick Ben Simmons agreed to a one-year, minimum-salary contract with the Kings on Friday…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":882475,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[557],"tags":[64,63,15607,590,85],"class_list":["post-882474","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-nba","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-ben-simmons","tag-nba","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/882474","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=882474"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/882474\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/882475"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=882474"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=882474"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=882474"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}