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Ben Simmons is Reportedly Going to Start for the Kings in Season Opener
By Matt Schultz
Published:
The NBA season begins a week from today, and if Philly hoops fans didn’t have enough to look forward to already, Marc Spears just gave us all another treat: Ben Simmons is expected to start for the Kings in their opener:
There’s a lot to enjoy in this report. First off, the scoop itself comes from Spears’ article on Andscape, which is a website no one has ever heard of. After some Googling, I found that Andscape is a spinoff site owned by ESPN. It used to be The Undefeated, which I do kind of remember, and then they changed their name to Andscape back in 2022. In my opinion, ESPN is doing a very bad job of getting Andscape out there. Seems like they don’t really care about it. Their last tweet was in April 2025:
But maybe all that’s changing now that Ben Simmons is back. Andscape is huge on Ben Simmons right now. I don’t think they were really competing with anyone, but nevertheless, they have fully cornered the Ben market. In addition to running this latest Ben article, they’re also co-producing the new documentary about Ben coming out this Sunday with ESPN E:60. Marc Spears is heavily involved in all this. He used to be a regular basketball writer and was on NBA Today and stuff, and now it seems like he’s just a Ben Simmons reporter. Interesting swerve.
Anyway, here’s some more good stuff from the piece:
SAN FRANCISCO — Other than drinking a smoothie, an excited Ben Simmons didn’t eat all day before playing his first NBA game in one year, five months and 27 days.
Starting an article with “Other than drinking a smoothie” made me laugh. Good start. Good scoop there.
The Sacramento Kings didn’t ease Simmons into his return, placing him directly into the starting lineup of Saturday’s preseason game. Just before tipoff, Golden State forward Draymond Green offered kudos to the 6-foot-10, 240-pound guard, who went on to win the opening tip.
“Who went on to win the opening tip.” Congrats, Ben. That’s huge.
Simmons had seven points on 2-of-4 shooting and added an assist in nine minutes during the Kings’ 111-106 loss to the Warriors. The 30-year-old was back on the floor wearing his old No. 25 for the first time after taking a season off to heal his back, knees and mind.
2-of-4 with one assist. Hell yeah.
“When you’re not hungry, you’re a little anxious. But you want to feel something,” Simmons told Andscape. “Feeling [game action] is a different feeling. It’s like feeling a bite from a fish. It’s just two different feelings. This feeling, you can’t replicate. I wasn’t nervous. I was like, ‘Let’s go! Let’s go!’
So funny he shoehorned fishing into this quote. How is it like feeling a bite from a fish? He did not explain. My guess is because game action is nothing like feeling a bite from a fish. Ben just wanted to mention how he fishes to the guy who produced his fishing documentary so Marc could publish a piece as an ad for the fishing documentary. These guys are playing 3-D chess…
Simmons said he “can’t wait” for “Being Ben” to air.
Lmao. Sounds amped.
Simmons is expected to remain in the starting lineup alongside rookie guard Darius Acuff for the Oct. 21 season opener against the Los Angeles Clippers. The last time he played in more than 51 NBA games in a season was the 2020-21 campaign, when he logged 58 with Philadelphia, his goal is to play all 82 this season with Sacramento.
And finally, there’s the scoop that Bleacher Report aggregated. Ben will be in the starting lineup. Excellent. I love the Kings. I love that there’s a team bad enough to start Ben Simmons. Let’s all get hyped for October 21st by watching Ben’s preseason highlights so far (2 buckets) (eyeballs emoji):
Matt Schultz is a comedy and sports writer from Philadelphia. He’s written extensively for ClickHole, The Onion, and Conan O’Brien’s Team Coco. His work has been featured in Vulture, Deadspin, The A.V. Club, Paste Magazine, and other publications. Much of his sports journalism can be found on college basketball websites that don’t exist anymore (PhilaHoops Heads rise up…) email: M.Schultz@sportradar.com