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The Brooklyn Nets are currently the No. 8 seed in the Eastern Conference standings, with 11 games left to play in the regular season, and head coach Steve Nash revealed Sunday why Ben Simmons is taking so long to make his debut.
Simmons, 25, is still rehabbing a lingering back issue from his days with the Philadelphia 76ers and has yet to play a single game this season. Coach Nash told reporters that Simmons is not doing any basketball activity and instead focusing on recovering from his injury.
"The physical therapist just works on his rehabilitation," Nash said. "I wasn't on [the table] working on him. They do what they do in a clinical setting and try to improve his condition. ... A lot of bio-mechanical work, manual therapy, all sorts of stuff to get him in a position to start to move in the right sequence and fashion."
Will Ben Simmons be ready for the postseason?
Nets hoped Simmons would have been on the floor by now, originally targeting a Friday, March 18 game against the Portland Trail Blazers for his debut. Now, however, ESPN's Adrian Wojnarowski and Ramona Shelburne report that the franchise believes he'll only play in "a couple" of regular season games.
Brooklyn plays its last two regular season games on April 8 and 10 against the Cleveland Cavaliers and Indiana Pacers, respectively. The play-in tournament starts later that week, but even if Simmons becomes available by then, he will lack chemistry with the team and won't be in basketball shape.