When the Sacramento Kings first announced that they were signing Ben Simmons, many people went straight to injury concerns. That is a real issue the Kings need to watch. But the bigger concern has to be Simmons keeping his heart and mind in the game, because that is what tripped him up in the past.
The story of Simmons is the story of two very different players. One is an elite point guard who had everything it took to be a champion and change how people viewed the position. The other is a story of a career waylaid by injuries, bad choices, and constantly being his own worst enemy.
You can point to the constant back problems, among other physical issues, as the reason why Simmons is nowhere near where he should be in his career given his talent. The real enemy has been his own mind and his inablity to say in the game mentally and emotionally.
After going through numerous injury-related issues as well as sitting on the 76ers bench until they traded him, Simmons game has not been remotely close to what he's capable of. That's because he stopped playing the game, and the game played him. Simmons completely lost his confidence.
The Kings need to support Simmons to help him succeed
To put this another way, Simmons stopped believing in himself and was really no longer passionate about basketball. That's a big part of the reason why he took a year off to go fishing. He rediscovered basketball, and realized it was still where he wanted to be. Hopefully, that's where his head is at.
That kind of negative thinking never really goes away. Once the doubts find their way in, it's really hard to get them to go away. Simmons will likely play the rest of his career with a nagging voice in the back of his mind that sounds a lot like Stephen A. Smith telling him that he doesn't belong on the court.
People will tell him to shut that annoying Stephen A. voice out. That's not easy to do because it's loud and obnoxious, an issue all sports fans have been dealing with for years. The entire Kings' organization, not to mention the whole of Sacramento, is going to have to help Simmons through this.
No one can predict if Simmons's career is going to get waylaid by injuries yet again. It might happen. It might not. But that crippling self-doubt is always going to be a factor. That means his success in his NBA return rests in the hands of Sactown. Give him a real chance, and Simmons might just deliver.
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