Ben Simmons with the Philadelphia 76ers during a 2018 game; archival photograph by Keith Allison

Ben Simmons Says He Has “No Limitations” in Kings Comeback — Who Gets to Decide When You’re Ready to Start Again?

After sitting out the entire 2025–26 NBA season, Ben Simmons walked into Sacramento Kings Media Day on September 28 wearing an NBA jersey again.

Earlier this month, Sacramento signed the 30-year-old three-time All-Star to a one-year, $3.5 million deal. On Monday, Simmons said he feels physically and mentally ready for the return. Asked about his body, he gave the answer Kings fans have been waiting to hear: “No limitations.”

He also pushed back hard on a different question that has followed him for years — whether he still wants to play basketball at all.

“I love this game,” Simmons said while rejecting that narrative. He said taking a year away was about getting himself back to a place where he could play again, not about losing interest in the sport.

And when he was asked whether the version of Ben Simmons people remember from his best NBA years could still exist, his answer was short: “He’s there. He woke up.”

That is a very confident way to begin a comeback. It is also the kind of sentence that immediately creates a second question: does anyone else have to believe you before you get to start again?

What happened to Ben Simmons before the Kings comeback?

Simmons was once one of the NBA’s most visible young stars: the No. 1 pick in the 2016 draft, Rookie of the Year, a three-time All-Star and an All-NBA selection.

The last several years looked very different. Injuries and long absences interrupted his career, his role became smaller, and every return seemed to come with another round of questions about what version of Simmons was left.

He last played during the 2024–25 season with Brooklyn and the LA Clippers. According to NBA.com, he appeared in 51 regular-season games that year and averaged 5.0 points, 5.6 assists and 4.7 rebounds. Then he did not play at all in 2025–26.

Sacramento’s deal gives him a route back without pretending the past few seasons did not happen. It is one year, not a ceremonial restoration of his old status. He still has to play.

At Kings Media Day, Simmons said the time away was one of the best decisions he had made for his career. He told reporters he feels ready, and when asked what he wants to do this season, his answer was simply: “dominate.”

That confidence matters because Simmons admitted there were moments when he wondered whether he would wear an NBA uniform again. His explanation was that the uncertainty came from his body, not from whether he wanted to play.

Why does skepticism still follow Ben Simmons?

Because a comeback announcement is not the same thing as a comeback.

Fans have heard optimism around Simmons before. They have also watched seasons interrupted by availability problems, role changes and long stretches where the player on the floor looked very different from the one who made three All-Star teams in Philadelphia.

That history does not disappear because he says he feels good now. It also does not prove that this attempt will fail.

The Kings are essentially entering the same uncertain space as everyone else: there is a documented past, a player saying he is ready, and no 2026–27 game evidence yet.

That is why the phrase “the old Ben” is interesting. It sounds like a return to something familiar, but the useful question may be whether Simmons actually needs to become his old self at all. Sacramento does not need the 2019 version of him to travel through time. It needs the 2026 version to be available, useful and able to help the team in whatever role exists now.

What are NBA fans saying about the return?

The reaction is exactly as divided as you would expect.

A September Reddit thread about Simmons signing with Sacramento drew more than 7,000 upvotes and a flood of jokes, skepticism and “redemption arc” talk. After Media Day, smaller discussion threads showed the same split: some fans were already joking about how quickly the optimism would disappear, while others said they would rather see him succeed than watch another failed return.

That mix matters more than any single comment. Simmons is not returning to a blank page. He is returning to a story the public thinks it already understands.

For years, “Ben Simmons” has often been discussed less as a normal player name and more as an argument: about talent, injuries, confidence, expectations, money, criticism and whether potential can be wasted.

Now he is asking everyone to watch another chapter.

This is not an addiction recovery story

Nothing Simmons said makes this a sobriety or addiction story, and it would be wrong to turn it into one.

The connection to recovery is narrower and more human: what happens when people mainly remember the hardest version of your story, but you are trying to live as someone who is no longer standing in that exact place?

People in recovery often know that tension intimately. So do people returning after illness, divorce, grief, career collapse, public failure or simply a long season where they did not look like themselves.

You can do real work privately and still walk back into a room where everyone remembers the old evidence first.

OliviaC: a second chance begins before the proof is complete

I think this is the uncomfortable part of second chances: they have to begin before the evidence is finished.

If proof came first, it would not really be a second chance. It would be a reward for already succeeding.

That does not mean other people owe you blind faith. Kings fans do not have to pretend the last few years never happened. Teammates do not have to treat a Media Day quote as a completed comeback. Simmons does not get to erase the record simply by saying he feels different.

But skepticism does not have to become identity either.

A person can be accountable to what happened without being permanently assigned to the worst interpretation of it.

In recovery, that distinction can be enormous. You may have broken trust. You may have disappointed people more than once. You may have a version of yourself that other people remember very clearly. The work is not to convince everyone that version never existed. The work is to keep creating new evidence.

That is why I like one question more than “Is the old Ben back?”

What does Ben Simmons do next?

By the time the season unfolds, there will be basketball evidence. Right now, there is only a player saying he feels ready and a team giving him another door.

Sometimes starting again looks exactly like that: not universal belief, not a clean reputation, not certainty — just the next chance to show what you do now.

For readers whose own version of this question is about rebuilding self-trust, How Self-Worth Can Change in Recovery goes deeper into the difference between what happened to you, what you did, and the identity you continue to build.

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Sources

Image credit: Ben Simmons with Philadelphia in 2018. Photo by Keith Allison, via Wikimedia Commons/Flickr, licensed CC BY-SA 2.0. The archival image is used for identification and does not depict the 2026 Kings Media Day appearance.

Editorial note: This article reports Simmons’s own statements about his readiness and time away from basketball. It does not independently assess his physical or mental health, and it does not imply that Simmons has an addiction or sobriety history.

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