Ben Simmons Returns to the NBA with Sacramento Kings
Ben Simmons is back in the NBA.
After a year away from the league and nearly a decade of turbulence, the former No. 1 pick has signed a one-year, $3.5 million deal with the Sacramento Kings, filling their final roster spot, a source close to the team confirmed. ESPN first reported the agreement.
For a player who has lived every extreme of the modern NBA — from can’t-miss prodigy to lightning rod, from All-Star centerpiece to medical file — this is not just another contract. It is a bet that his body holds up, his mind is clear and his game still has something left to give.
From LSU phenom to stalled debut
The legend started early.
At LSU in 2015-16, Simmons arrived as a one-and-done force, stacking up 19.2 points, 11.8 rebounds, 4.8 assists, two steals and nearly a block per game as a freshman. He looked like the prototype for the positionless era: 6-foot-10, sees the floor like a guard, rebounds like a big, guards across the board.
Philadelphia made it official in 2016, taking him No. 1 overall in the NBA Draft. The franchise sold a vision: Simmons as the do-everything engine of the next great 76ers team.
Then his first practice changed everything.
He rolled his ankle, fractured his right foot and ankle, and never saw the court that season. The injury didn’t heal in time, and the top pick’s rookie year vanished before it ever started.
Ascending star, rising expectations
When Simmons finally hit the floor in 2017-18, he wasted no time justifying the hype.
He claimed Rookie of the Year in 2018, his “second” season but first on the court, averaging 15.8 points, 8.1 rebounds, 8.2 assists, 1.7 steals and 0.9 blocks. The 76ers surged back into the postseason, their rebuild suddenly real. They bowed out in the second round to the Boston Celtics in five games, but Simmons looked like a franchise pillar.
The next step came quickly. Simmons made his first All-Star team in 2018-19, and Philadelphia pushed deeper into the playoffs. Their run ended in one of the most iconic moments of the decade — Kawhi Leonard’s bouncing, baseline dagger in Game 7 of the Eastern Conference semifinals that sent the Toronto Raptors on their way to a title and sent the 76ers home stunned.
Simmons kept building his résumé. In 2019-20, he earned first-team All-Defense honors and another All-Star nod, anchoring the Sixers’ perimeter defense while orchestrating their offense. Yet Boston again ended their season, sweeping Philadelphia in the first round.
The 2020-21 campaign underlined just how complete his impact could be. Simmons made his third straight All-Star Game, grabbed another All-Defense first-team selection and finished as runner-up for Defensive Player of the Year. On paper, this was a star in his prime, guarding all five positions, pushing pace, bending games with his passing.
Then came Atlanta. Game 7. The play that followed him everywhere.
With Philadelphia trailing the Hawks 88-86 and 3:30 left, Simmons caught the ball near the rim with a clear path to a dunk or layup. He passed it up. The moment instantly became a symbol — fair or not — of his offensive hesitancy. The Sixers lost the series. His relationship with the franchise never recovered.
Trade demand, mental strain and a body that wouldn’t cooperate
The fallout hit hard.
Simmons asked for a trade during the 2021 offseason and held out, skipping training camp and preseason. He cited mental health reasons for his absence. What followed was a standoff that stretched months and layered personal strain on top of physical pain.
He missed the entire 2021-22 season, officially due to a back injury and ongoing mental health challenges, with the trade impasse hanging over everything. Philadelphia finally moved him to the Brooklyn Nets in February 2022.
Brooklyn never saw the full version of the player they thought they’d acquired.
In 2022-23, Simmons managed 43 games, fighting through knee trouble and persistent back issues. The back problems rolled into 2023-24. He appeared in only 15 games before being shut down again, this time requiring surgery.
The pattern became grimly familiar: rehab, return, setback.
By the 2024-25 season, Simmons’ stint in Brooklyn ended after just 33 total games with the Nets. They waived him. The Los Angeles Clippers offered a lifeline in February 2025, and he played 18 games there, but his physical limitations were obvious. The burst that once separated him from most forwards in the league simply wasn’t there.
When that season ended, so did his contract. Simmons hit free agency, carrying a battered body and a reputation shaped as much by absence as by achievement.
A full year away, and a gamble in Sacramento
Then he stopped.
Simmons sat out the entire 2025-26 season, stepping away from the NBA to rest, rehab and try to rebuild his body. No cameos. No late-season returns. Just the long, unglamorous grind of trying to get right.
Now he resurfaces in Sacramento.
The Kings see opportunity in a player who, at his best, warps the geometry of a game. They add Simmons to a core that features Zach LaVine, Domantas Sabonis and Darius Acuff Jr., the No. 7 pick in the 2026 NBA Draft. On paper, it’s a mix of shot creation, interior playmaking and youth — and Simmons slots into that as an oversized ball handler and defensive fulcrum.
He’s not walking into a locker room of strangers, either. Simmons and LaVine go back to their younger days. Sabonis entered the league in the same 2016 draft class. There’s at least some shared history to lean on.
A source close to the team indicated Simmons is expected to operate primarily as the backup point guard behind Acuff, with lineups that feature both guards on the floor also in play. That kind of flexibility is exactly what Sacramento’s front office and coaching staff have talked about publicly for years.
General manager Scott Perry and head coach Doug Christie have repeatedly stressed their desire to build a rugged, defense-first identity. Simmons fits that blueprint. At 6-foot-10 and 240 pounds, he brings the kind of size and switchability that can change what a team looks like on that end of the floor.
Inside the organization, there’s belief that Simmons can credibly defend every position. That vision — Simmons blowing up actions on the perimeter, bodying bigs in the post, igniting transition with one long rebound — is what makes the risk worth taking for Sacramento. A source close to the team described optimism that his string of injuries is finally behind him.
It is a chance. For the Kings, a manageable one-year wager on upside. For Simmons, something much bigger.
Once, he was the face of a franchise and a future Defensive Player of the Year candidate. Now he arrives in Sacramento as a role player, a secondary handler, a specialist on a team trying to climb the Western Conference ladder.
The question is no longer what he might become. It’s whether, after everything, he can still be himself.
