Basketball On The Internet.

REMEMBER Ben Simmons? A decade ago he was the NBA's No.1 draft selection and Australia's great hope for a genuine superstar in The Show. But injuries and some head-scratching career decision-making derailed all that. Yet after sidelining himself for a year, he has designs on a comeback at Miami.

Simmons, who turns 30 in three weeks, told "Men's Health" he liked the idea of returning and playing for Erik Spoelstra at the Heat.

Given Simmons' chequered career history, having last played with the LA Clippers in 2024-25, notable US commentator Stephen A Smith was quick to respond to the article.

“I don’t think Jesus could convince me to take Ben Simmons,” Smith said on his show.

“And if I did so, I do so begrudgingly, only ‘cos I’ll be scared to go to hell and Jesus asked me and I didn’t listen.

“I think Ben Simmons is a basketball abomination. He is the only player that I have ever witnessed in NBA history who I believe should pay NBA teams to have him play.

“This brother was literally on the basketball court and treated attempting a jump shot as if you had asked him to be on the front lines in Iran or Iraq.

“(He is) The biggest waste of talent we have seen in NBA history, if not all of professional sports, in our lifetime.

“Never has somebody been so damn good — that good — and was a waste of space.” 

Harsh maybe, but Smith has never skirted from stating his mind and Simmons, at best, can be described as an enigma.

During his time away from basketball, the Melbourne-born 210cm athlete bought into the South Florida Sails professional fishing team, spending the past eight months fishing in Florida.

Taken at #1 by the Philadelphia 76ers, the three-time All Star has excited and upset Aussie ball fans too, wondering how he would look in the Boomers' green-and-gold at a World Cup or Olympics.

He told Men’s Health he needed time away from the sport to “find myself again.”

“I plan on getting as strong as I can physically, getting my ass on the court, and then the team realising that my abilities will be needed,” Simmons said. “I don’t have a plan on where.

“Miami would be nice, and not because it’s Miami. I like Erik Spoelstra, I like the Heat, I like their organisation, I like the culture.”

Simmons this season could have been an NBA champion but he rejected the New York Knicks’ veteran-minimum offer earlier in the summer.