Ben Simmons has a new home. The three-time All-Star agreed to a one-year, $3.52 million deal with the Los Angeles Clippers on September 4, closing out a strange offseason for a player who was once the No. 1 overall pick.
For the Clippers, this is a low-risk swing at a very high ceiling. If Simmons is healthy, he gives them a 6-foot-10 playmaker who can guard four positions and run the second unit. If he is not, they walk away for pennies and move on.
Los Angeles is trying to squeeze one more contending window out of Kawhi Leonard and James Harden. The bench needed size, defense, and a real passer. Simmons checks every one of those boxes on paper.
The tricky part is the shooting. Simmons attempted five threes all of last season and made one. Playing him alongside Ivica Zubac creates spacing problems, so head coach Tyronn Lue will likely stagger those minutes and let Simmons run point when the second unit checks in.
His health remains the entire story. Simmons has not played more than 57 games in a season since 2020-21, and back surgeries have robbed him of the explosion that made him a rookie sensation. The Clippers have their own long list of injury concerns, so this pairing feels like a bet on modern sports science more than anything else.
League executives who spoke on background see the fit as clever. Simmons in transition, Simmons as a screener, Simmons as a defensive stopper on a switching second unit. Those are all real skills that translate whether he ever fixes his jump shot.
The bigger question is whether Simmons still wants it. He publicly stepped away from the Sixers in 2021 citing mental health, and the last three seasons in Brooklyn were largely a slog. Landing in Los Angeles with a veteran-heavy locker room might be exactly the reset he needs.
The Clippers open training camp in late September, and Simmons will have a full month to build chemistry with Harden and Leonard before opening night. Nobody expects him to be an All-Star again. But if he plays 60 games and hits eight points, seven assists, and six rebounds a night, this becomes the best value contract of the offseason.
That is a big if. Everyone in Los Angeles is about to find out whether Ben Simmons has one more chapter left in him.
A longtime sports reporter, Carlos Garcia has written about some of the biggest and most notable athletic events of the last 5 years. He has been credentialed to cover MLS, NBA and MLB games all over the United States. His work has been published on Fox Sports, Bleacher Report, AOL and the Washington Post.
