{"id":684964,"date":"2026-05-21T21:30:09","date_gmt":"2026-05-21T21:30:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/684964\/"},"modified":"2026-05-21T21:30:09","modified_gmt":"2026-05-21T21:30:09","slug":"ben-simmons-is-officially-a-champion-just-not-in-the-nba","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/684964\/","title":{"rendered":"Ben Simmons is officially a champion \u2014 just not in the NBA"},"content":{"rendered":"

Ben Simmons is officially a champion \u2014 just not in the NBA<\/a> originally appeared on The Sporting News<\/a>. Add The Sporting News as a Preferred Source by clicking here<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Ben Simmons has finally won a championship.<\/p>\n

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For years, the former Brooklyn Nets<\/a> star has been chasing an NBA championship, but he has never\u00a0made it to the NBA Finals. However, after coming up empty in free agency, he tried a different sport and found immediate success.<\/p>\n

The three-time NBA All-Star helped the South Florida Sails capture the 2026 Walker’s Cay Open in the Bahamas. It is the second and a major event on the Sport Fishing Championship calendar. Simmons has a controlling interest in the Sails.<\/p>\n

Simmons’ team finished the three-day event with 2,925 points, nearly 1,500 more than the runner-up. The Sails recorded six blue marlin releases in the tournament.<\/p>\n

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For context, the Sport Fishing Championship is played between 16 professional teams in North America. It includes\u00a0six stops and 12 tournaments before the ultimate Zane Grey Playoffs.<\/p>\n

MORE:\u00a0How NBA\u2019s lottery rule changes would have altered draft history<\/a><\/p>\n

Ben Simmons couldn’t overcome his Achilles heel in NBA<\/p>\n

Simmons was the first overall pick in the 2016 NBA draft, picked up by the Philadelphia 76ers<\/a>. These were his golden years, as along with Joel Embiid and Tobias Harris, he went deep into the postseason.<\/p>\n

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However, teams soon found his Achilles heel \u2014 he isn’t a reliable shooter, both from the free throw line and outside the paint.<\/p>\n

As a result, teams started targeting him in the fourth quarter, and he became a liability. His decline was accelerated by injuries.<\/p>\n

From the 76ers, he went to the Nets, and in his later years there, he became a bench player. Last season, he signed with the LA Clippers<\/a>, but after modest averages of\u00a02.9 points, 3.8 rebounds and 3.1 assists per game in 18 contests, no team offered him in free agency before the 2025-26 season.<\/p>\n

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More NBA news:<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Ben Simmons is officially a champion \u2014 just not in the NBA originally appeared on The Sporting News.…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":684965,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[434],"tags":[251087,14712,6996,49,48,8840,1526,459,16155,1528,82,51171],"class_list":["post-684964","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-nba","tag-2016-nba-draft","tag-ben-simmons","tag-brooklyn-nets","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-clippers","tag-joel-embiid","tag-nba","tag-nba-championship","tag-philadelphia-76ers","tag-sports","tag-tobias-harris"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/684964","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=684964"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/684964\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/684965"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=684964"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=684964"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=684964"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}