Ben Simmons Tears Achilles at Kings Practice, Expected to Miss Season

Comeback ends before it begins

Ben Simmons' carefully rebuilt NBA comeback is over before it ever reached a regular-season game. The Sacramento Kings announced on Sunday, 18 October 2026, that Simmons tore his right Achilles tendon during a live drill at practice, with an MRI confirming the injury. The 30-year-old guard will undergo surgery, and while the team has not set an official timetable, he is expected to miss the entire 2026-27 season.

The timing is brutal. Simmons had spent the whole of the 2025-26 season out of the league as an unsigned free agent, rehabbing the lingering back issues — and multiple surgeries — that had derailed his prime. The year away had appeared to work. Reports out of Sacramento's training camp were overwhelmingly positive: Simmons was moving well, playing a more aggressive and attacking style, and averaging 10.5 points, 4 rebounds and 4 assists in just 17.4 minutes per preseason game.

Last Friday, in Sacramento's preseason finale against the San Antonio Spurs, he put up 14 points, 8 rebounds, 7 assists and a steal across 25 minutes of playing time. The Kings had rewarded his work with a one-year, $3.5 million contract signed last month, structured as a non-guaranteed deal that would have paid him $1 million had he made the opening-night roster. Simmons was in line for a significant rotation role — and possibly a starting spot — under head coach Doug Christie, providing defence and playmaking alongside rookie Darius Acuff Jr., Domantas Sabonis, Zach LaVine and Keegan Murray.

Simmons responds

Simmons confirmed the news himself with a statement posted to Instagram, vowing the injury would not define him.

"I've faced challenges before that tested me mentally, physically, and emotionally, and I've found a way through every single one of them. This injury is another chapter in my journey, not the end of my story," he wrote. "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."

It is a devastating turn for a career that once looked limitless. Selected by the Philadelphia 76ers with the No. 1 overall pick in the 2016 NBA Draft, Simmons won Rookie of the Year in 2017-18 and made three All-Star and All-Defensive teams. But a right foot fracture in his draft year, constant knee and leg injuries from 2021 to 2025, and a back problem that sapped his confidence kept him from ever realising his full potential. Two seasons ago, between the Brooklyn Nets and the Los Angeles Clippers, he played 51 games, averaging 5 points, 5.6 assists and 4.7 rebounds while shooting 52 percent — all from inside the arc.

What Sacramento loses

The Kings now face an awkward reset days before opening night. They open their 2026-27 season on Wednesday against the Los Angeles Clippers, and Christie must suddenly fill a sizeable hole in his rotation. NBC Sports noted that Precious Achiuwa could see extended run with the starters, and Acuff Jr. — the rookie who was expected to share playmaking duties with Simmons — may now shoulder more of the second-unit burden than planned.

There is no clean replacement for what Simmons brought at his best: a 6-foot-10 floor general who can defend across positions and run an offence without scoring. Sacramento bet on a discount price for a former All-Star; instead, they get the league's most unforgiving injury weeks before the games start to count.

A league-wide injury scare day

Simmons' injury was the darkest moment of a nerve-racking weekend across the league. In San Francisco, Stephen Curry gave the Golden State Warriors a scare when he limped straight to the locker room during the team's open practice on Sunday. The relief was quick: head coach Steve Kerr told reporters Curry was "fine", describing it as a tweaked ankle, and the Warriors later classified it officially as a sprain that does not appear severe. Curry's status will be monitored, but the expectation is that he suits up when Golden State opens its season against the Lakers on Wednesday.

Elsewhere, Warriors big man Kristaps Porzingis met with general manager Mike Dunleavy and vice president Dr. Rick Celebrini about an undisclosed injury that currently has no return timetable, while the Oklahoma City Thunder locked in Cason Wallace on a five-year, $139 million rookie-scale extension — a significant commitment to the All-Defensive guard who led the NBA in total steals and deflections last season and steps into a starting role.

The Phoenix Suns, meanwhile, agreed a three-year, $29 million contract extension with centre Oso Ighodaro, running through the 2030-31 season after the club picks up his $2.5 million team option for 2027-28.

What comes next

For Simmons, the road back begins again — another rehab, another year away, and the same questions about whether his body will ever let him be the player he was at his best. At 30, an Achilles tear is a particularly cruel injury for a player whose game was built on explosiveness and change of direction, and whose shooting never developed into a fallback.

For Sacramento, the season tips off on schedule with one fewer reason for optimism. The buzz that had been building all camp — about a reinvented Simmons, a smart veteran bet, a rotation that finally made sense — ended in a single practice drill on a Sunday afternoon.