The odds of Ben Simmons returning early next week are looking more and more in the struggling Nets’ favor.
Prior to Saturday night’s 106-104 win over the Rockets, head coach Jacque Vaughn announced that everything is on track for Simmons to return as early as Monday night to face the Jazz.
“Yeah, all signs pointing towards the likelihood of him playing next week. So, things went well today,” Vaughn said.
“I saw him. He completed the entire session and a high likelihood of him playing vs. Utah,” he added after watching Simmons complete practice after being out for 2 ¹/₂ months with a lower-back nerve impingement.
“It was great. I feel great,” Simmons said about his short stint with G-League Long Island. “It was good to just be on the floor and get up and down, and play and get some live situational things going for me. So, I’m excited to be back and looking forward to it.”
The Nets will need Simmons, who is often praised for excelling in a fast-paced game, back on the floor as their facilitator as the Nets have a 18-27 mark, having dropped 12 of their prior 16 games.
“We’re definitely excited. It’d be great to have him back,” Nic Claxton said Thursday. “Just having that back and around the group 24/7. Everything he can do, passing, getting us out in transition, we can play faster, rebounding, defending. So we are definitely ready to have him back on the court with us.”
When asked where he can help upon return, Simmons answered, “Everywhere.”
“I just want to have an impact. I want to come in and win games,” he added. “We haven’t been winning lately. So it’s one of those things where we have to get back on track. I’m looking forward to just playing my role and helping this team win.”
The return of the injury-prone point guard has been a long time coming for the Nets, who have yet to reap many of the benefits from Simmons after acquiring his long-term deal in a trade from Philadelphia.
That deal also gave the Nets Seth Curry, Andre Drummond and two first-round draft picks in exchange for James Harden and Paul Millsap on Feb. 10, 2022.
Simmons has appeared in just 49 of the Nets’ 164 games as of Saturday night, including four playoff games, since the team acquired him.
This season, he has appeared in just six games and is taking in $37.9 million — meaning he has made roughly $4.3 million per game played so far this season.
In those games, he averaged 6.5 points, 6.7 assists and 10.8 rebounds, shooting 52.8 percent from the field.
In 2022-23, he was out for 40 regular-season games as well as four playoff games.
Simmons believes the recovery from the left back nerve impingement was different than the one he suffered last season.
“I felt I was starting from zero,” he said of last year. “With this one, I at least had a lot of work I had put in prior. So I wasn’t at zero, I felt like I was just dealing with that injury in that area. So I was able to keep that strength in other areas and just work on what I needed to work on in terms of the rehab.”
He said he expects to just “play my role,” and Vaughn announced that the plan for Simmons’ position and minutes would be revealed after Saturday’s game.
“I’ll keep that until after this game,” Vaughn said. “We’ll be able to talk about that on Monday. Let’s make sure we all get through Sunday nice and clean. And then I’ll talk about what it looks like going forward with him.”