By Eurohoops team / info@eurohoops.net
Ben Simmons has yet to play a game after his injury during the 2021 playoffs Game 7 with the Philadelphia 76ers. His fallout with the Sixers eventually led him to the Brooklyn Nets in exchange for James Harden, though he has not made his season debut yet, nearly a month after the trade.
Nets head coach Steve Nash assessed Simmons’ situation while talking to reporters Saturday, and he clearly stated the Australian player is far from being ready to play.
“He’s not ready for even one-on-one, let alone three-on-three, five-on-five,” Nash said, via nypost.com. “So he’s got to get to a place where he can go full speed unopposed, one-on-oh, and then we’ll talk about and hopefully quickly he can go to one-on-one, three-on-three, five-on-five”.
Just when Simmons was cleared to join the Nets’ practice, he was faced with another hurdle, namely a back issue that has pushed his return to action to a later date, with no clear estimate of his season debut. “A little setback, whatever that was,” said the Nets coach. “So now we’re just trying to make sure we get that in the bag before we rush him out there and suffer a longer setback”.
“I don’t want to classify it the wrong way, but he’s had back issues at times. So I don’t want to say he’s got a bad back, I don’t know if that’s fair,” added Nash. “He’s had a flare-up of something but was really healthy for the last six months until the flare-up. So I don’t want it to be … I’m not sure that it’s fair for me to say he has a back problem. It’s just right now he has a flared-up back.”
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