NBA point guard Ben Simmons said he plans on “getting my ass on the court” after multiple back surgeries and sitting out the 2025-26 season.
In an interview with Men’s Health, the three-time NBA All-Star explained that he “needed to get away” from the sport to “find myself again” after letting scrutiny from others weigh heavily on him.
“I plan on getting as strong as I can physically, getting my ass on the court, and then the team realizing that my abilities will be needed,” said Simmons, who’s made $203 million in his NBA career.
“I don’t have a plan on where….Maybe I’ll go back to Philly. Miami would be nice. And not because it’s Miami—I like [Heat head coach] Erik Spoelstra, I like the Heat, I like their organization, I like the culture.”
Simmons, who is not signed with an NBA team, last played for the Los Angeles Clippers in the 2024-2025 season after being waived by the Brooklyn Nets in February 2025.
The Knicks targeted him last offseason as they looked for help off the bench but Simmons chose to not play basketball at all in the 2025-26 season. Simmons was then dropped by his agent as a result of rejecting the Knicks’ contract offer.
Simmons played 51 games between the Nets and Clippers in 2024-25 and revealed he was in “so much” pain to the point where he “couldn’t walk around” due to the nerve pain in his back.
His shooting troubles followed him from Philadelphia to Brooklyn and resulted in merciless online trolling.
“What if I wanna take some time for myself and put myself in the best position to play [again]? I was like, You know what? F–k it,” he said of opting out of the 2025-26 season.
“If it doesn’t work, it doesn’t work. But this is what feels right….I needed to get away, and have some space, and just find myself again.”
The former No. 1 pick in the 2016 NBA draft, Simmons explained that he reached a point where he “had enough” of public scrutiny.
“When you have a lot of things that are not going right for you in terms of what you love to do, you gotta put yourself in a different environment, and I don’t think I did a good enough job of putting myself in the right environment,” he said of needing a break away from the outside noise.
“I just kinda let it bang on me, and it hit on me the whole time until I had enough….I feel like that moment when I decided [to sit out the ’25–’26 season], and I had that control and power, that’s when [the weight] came off.”
Simmons shared that he feels great for the first time in a long time.
“You kind of fall into it just being a normal thing, and then you’re like, ‘Oh, wow, like this is how I really should be feeling.’ So it’s cool to feel that now,” he said.
The former 2018 NBA Rookie of the Year added that he’s not feeling pressure to make an NBA comeback.
“I had pressure when I was injured. People are gonna say the same thing every single time. It’s like, ‘All right, well, if that’s what you think, then that’s what you think,’” Simmons said. “When I’m out there, I make everybody better. I play defense. I get offensive rebounds.
“I think this is just what I’m choosing to do, like, no one’s forcing me. It’s never been about, do I love playing basketball? That’s never a question. That’s in my DNA. I think sometimes you get over all the bulls–t that comes with it, though.”
In December, Simmons purchased a majority ownership stake in the South Florida Sails Angling Club, a fishing team that competes in a professional league called the Sport Fishing Championship.
