For the first time in years, Ben Simmons had given us a reason to believe.
That's what made the news land so heavily. Because it wasn't just that Simmons had torn his Achilles; it was that it happened now, days before the NBA season, just as he'd started to answer a question that had followed him for half a decade.
Every Achilles tear is cruel, but this one felt slightly more unjust than most. For years, the knock on Simmons was that he didn't care enough. He was supposedly a gifted athlete who'd drifted on talent alone; someone who enjoyed the fruits of the game more than the game itself. This comeback was quietly dismantling that idea. He was returning from back injuries that very well should have been debilitating, which isn't something you just 'talent' your way back from that.
So, on the eve of the NBA season, that comeback being cut short by something out of his control was particularly jarring. It robs us of seeing whether the Australian with the greatest peak in the NBA, and someone who had the potential to be an all-time great, could return to that trajectory.
Given what Simmons hasn't done on a basketball court in recent years, it's worth reminding ourselves what he was. As a high school player out of Melbourne, he was the first Australian ever selected for the McDonald's All-American game, widely regarded as the premier exhibition in junior basketball in the U.S. He was the consensus No. 1 player in his class, winning the Naismith, Gatorade and Morgan Wootten national player of the year awards.
I sat with a then-18-year-old Simmons in the bowels of the United Center in Chicago in April, 2015 during McDonald's All American week. Cameras, recruiters, sneaker reps, and reporters filled every corridor, all waiting on the same handful of teenagers. We sat for an interview on the concourse of the arena. Shaquille O'Neal had just called him the best player in the world.
"People can say what they want but, at the end, I have to bring it," Simmons told me at the time.
For all intents and purposes, he did bring it. When he got to the NBA, as the No. 1 overall pick, LeBron James called him 'Young King'. That was apt because, with every big game from Simmons, three names were almost always attached: James, Oscar Robertson, and Magic Johnson.
Simmons became the only rookie ever to average at least 15 points, 8 rebounds, and 8 assists on better than 50% shooting; he was the first rookie since Robertson in 1961 to average 8 rebounds and 8 assists a game. He had 12 triple-doubles as a rookie, second only to Robertson's 26 and ahead of Magic.
Simmons was one of three rookies to reach 1,000 points, 500 rebounds, and 500 assists, alongside - guess who? - Robertson and Magic. There are too many to continue listing them, but it didn't take long for Simmons to earn three straight NBA All-Star selections (2019 to 2021), an All-NBA Third Team selection in 2020, All-Defensive First Team in 2020 and 2021, and the league's steals leader in 2019-20.
As an Australian, he was the first to win NBA Rookie of the Year - and any major NBA award - the first All-Star, and signed the richest contract ever signed by an Australian athlete: a five-year, US$170 million extension in 2019.
No Australian basketballer has reached that peak. In November 2017, nine games into his career, I asked him how long it would take to become the best player in the league.
"Time will tell," he said. "It depends on the work I put in and how great I wanna be."
For all the peaks, there were also some valleys. There was the Game 7 loss to Atlanta in 2021, the trade request, the holdout. Is there regret in how his tenure in Philadelphia ended? It'd be unreasonable to think there wasn't.
What does get lost in the noise is that his back injury was completely legitimate. He hurt it ramping up his conditioning after the trade to the Nets and never played for Brooklyn that season. He had a microdiscectomy for a herniated disc in 2022. A nerve impingement shut him down in March 2023. It returned six games into the next season, and he missed 38 straight games. In March, 2024, he had a second back surgery.
During that period of time, his body wouldn't let him be him.
The Boomers are the harder part in all of this. In Chicago, at 18, he'd told me: "As soon as I'm able to put on that jersey for my country in the Olympics, I'll do it."
He passed on Rio in 2016, which was understandable heading into his rookie season. In May, 2019, healthy and a fresh All-Star, he committed to that year's World Cup, but pulled out two months later, choosing to focus on the Sixers' season while saying he'd still be part of the warmup games at home.
In June 2021, healthy again, he withdrew from the Tokyo Olympics to work on his game after the Atlanta series. He hasn't played for Australia in a major tournament, and there were windows when he absolutely could have played. Had he taken one, he'd have a reservoir of goodwill at home that might have carried him through everything since. Australians forgive almost anything from someone who turns up in green and gold. It also fed the narrative that followed him for years: that he didn't care enough; that he was okay to just coast as a supremely gifted athlete.
Simmons' actions of late have actually told a different story, though. There was the Boomers' player-led camp that he took part in in Melbourne over the offseason, and the workout he took part in ahead of signing with the Sacramento Kings, all as part of the process of overcoming these brutal back injuries.
What's also worth remembering, in light of this Achilles tear, is that we've been here before. Almost to the month.
On September 30, 2016, in the final scrimmage of his first NBA training camp with the Philadelphia 76ers, Simmons rolled his ankle and broke the fifth metatarsal in his right foot. The No. 1 pick lost his entire rookie season before it began. The two injuries both came in practice, both on the eve of a season he'd waited for.
Simmons overcame that broken foot to put together the greatest peak for an Australian in the NBA, and was on the trajectory to be one of the best players in the league. That, to put it lightly, is notable. Yes, Simmons has earned and enjoyed the fruits that come with being an NBA player and celebrity, but he's also experienced some of its pitfalls; and, oftentimes, demonstrated that he can overcome those bouts of adversity, despite the perceived apathy.
Simmons addressed the Achilles injury in a recent social media post: "I've faced challenges before that tested me mentally, physically, and emotionally, and I've found a way through every single one of them," he said.
"This injury is another chapter in my journey, not the end of my story. It's never easy being away from the game I love, especially after everything it took to get back here. But if there's one thing I've learned, it's that adversity doesn't define you. How you respond to it does."
This attempted NBA comeback wasn't just a façade. The way we know that is because we all felt the same pit in the bottom of our stomachs when we saw the news of this injury. We'd all accepted this was a real, honest endeavour for Simmons to get back to the league, and hopefully return to the player he once was. His return had captured the imagination of everyone across the NBA ecosystem.
There's reason to have hope that, like his foot injury as a rookie, this is just a blip; that Simmons has developed the tools to, once again, overcome adversity: "I've been knocked down before, and I've always found a way to get back up," he said. "This time will be no different."