Colangelo: Ben Simmons will not play this year

In his post trade deadline press conference, general manager Bryan Colangelo confirmed that Ben Simmons will miss the entirety of his rookie season.

Simmons had a CT scan on Thursday morning, and according to Colangelo, it revealed that his foot is still not fully healed.

The top pick in the 2016 draft suffered a fracture of the fifth metatarsal bone of his right foot on Sept. 30, and was expected to miss somewhere around 3 months. The team opted to bring him along slowly, but an ESPN report from January indicated that Simmons foot was fully healed, and a return post-All-Star break looked likely.

Keith Pompey wrote on Feb. 16 that Simmons’ foot actually was not fully healed, a notion that Colangelo confirmed on Friday.

Colangelo also indicated that the current plan has now shifted to having him ready for Summer League play in July.

This situation is one of many disappointments Sixers fans have been forced to confront over the past few weeks. The prospects of Simmons and Embiid teaming up for a late season playoff push looked promising at one point, but now both are injured, and the team will most certainly continue their slide to the top of the draft lottery.

“I have alway known that there was a desire to get him back on the court when healthy, and we always anticipated there would be an opportunity for him to play this season,” Colangelo said. “But there was always the outside chance it didn’t happen because there wasn’t complete or full healing. We didn’t want to put him at risk for a re-fracture.”

In terms of Simmons’ recovery, the only thing people can hope now is the team continues to monitor his foot as he looks forward to the 2017-18 seasons. Jones fractures can be very tricky injuries, as we’re seeing currently, and his longterm health is the most important thing in his situation.

According to Colangelo, Simmons will undergo another CT scan in a month.