NBA NO CHANCE FOR BEN
THE Philadelphia 76ers have officially ruled out forward Ben Simmons for the remainder of his rookie NBA season after tests revealed his broken right foot was not fully healed.
The No. 1 overall draft pick out of LSU was “heartbroken” over the news, Sixers general manager Bryan Colangelo said yesterday.
“I have always known that there was a desire to get him back on the court when healthy,” Colangelo said.
“We’ve always anticipated there would be an opportunity for him to play, hopefully this season.
“But there was always the outside chance that it didn’t happen because there wasn’t complete and full healing.
“And we weren’t going to put Ben Simmons in a place where he was (susceptible) to a refracture.
“There are genetic things that change the healing patterns of people.
“So if everybody had done their research and saw that most Jones fractures took three to four months, great.
“But it’s not three to four months in every case, it’s three to four months in most cases.
“He’s heartbroken. He wants to play. He wants to be out there. It’s eating him alive, I’m sure.”
The 208cm, 108kg Sim- mons fractured his foot on September 30, the final day of training camp.
He underwent surgery in October to repair an acute Jones fracture of the fifth metatarsal of his right foot.
The Sixers said his latest scan taken Thursday showed the injury was not healing as expected.
The 20-year-old from Melbourne has not appeared in a regular-season game.
He played a single season at LSU, where he averaged 19.2 points, 11.8 rebounds, 4.8 assists and 2.0 steals per match.
The 76ers are 21-35 and have 26 games remaining this season.