Simmons injured his achilles at Kings practice on the eve of the 2026-27 season and has since had surgery – something fellow stars such as Jayson Tatum, Damian Lillard and Tyrese Haliburton have worked their way back from in recent months.<\/p>\n
Lillard and Haliburton missed the entire 2025-26 season while Tatum returned early in the playoffs for the Boston Celtics.<\/p>\n
Simmons, 30, broke his silence following the major hurdle with Andscape’s Marc Spears<\/a>, who was also behind the ESPN documentary ‘Being Ben’, which aired on October 18.<\/p>\n \u201cMy mentality is that I\u2019ll be back,\u201d Simmons told Andscape from his home.<\/p>\n \u201cI\u2019ll do everything in my power to get back, get healthy and be better than I was before. There is nothing but time and opportunity to do so. So, I\u2019m going to attack it the way I am now.”<\/p>\n The three-time NBA\u00a0All-Star impressed during preseason and was set to be a major ingredient for the Kings this season and Simmons told Andscape he knew he was capable at the top level.<\/p>\n \u201cI\u2019m more than capable of playing in this league,\u201d he said. <\/p>\n \u201cI\u2019m built for this. I\u2019m not a normal guy. I\u2019m kind of like a unicorn in the sense of how I play the game. I\u2019m not your typical player. I don\u2019t know how to put it, but I feel like I\u2019m a lot different than most.\u201d<\/p>\n The former Philadelphia 76er as well as Brooklyn Net and Los Angeles Clipper had impressed so much with the Kings in training camp and preseason that he was tipped to be a captain for Doug Christie’s side this season.<\/p>\n While he spent more than a year out of the game, Simmons also spoke about some words he shared with Golden State Warriors coach Steve Kerr during a pre-season game.<\/p>\n \u201cI said something to Steve,\u201d Simmons said. <\/p>\n \u201cI said, \u2018Y\u2019all didn\u2019t want me?\u2019 That was in the first quarter. And [Kerr] said, \u2018I didn\u2019t know if you were healthy.\u2019 And I was like, \u2018OK. That\u2019s why you have people that do their job and go fly out and see.\u2019 But it is what it is. That\u2019s just me being competitive. It wasn\u2019t personal.\u201d<\/p>\n For the full story from Marc Spears and Andscape<\/a>, click here.<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Ben Simmons says he is “built for this” as he starts his road to recovery after an achilles…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":946210,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[557],"tags":[64,63,590,85],"class_list":["post-946209","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-nba","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-nba","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/946209","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=946209"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/946209\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/946210"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=946209"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=946209"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=946209"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/10\/6ae4338ccbbad805c50ae6fc_GettyImages-2299063307.jpg\")
Head Coach Steve Kerr of the Golden State Warriors and Ben Simmons #25 of the Sacramento Kings smile during a 2026 NBA Preseason game on October 10, 2026 at Chase Center in San Francisco, California. Photo: Mike Rasay\/NBAE via Getty Images<\/p>\n