Nets buying out Ben Simmons to end star’s failed tenure

There were plenty of times when Ben Simmons’ colossal disappointment of a Nets tenure seemed as if it could be over: back in March 2023, when a nerve impingement in his back and knee problems led to him being shut down; one year later, when his season ended again due to a nerve impingement.

But it took until Friday for a disastrous chapter in Nets history to finally reach the brink of shuttering, when the Nets and Simmons were working to complete a buyout, The Post’s Brian Lewis confirmed.

Simmons was ruled out in the morning for their game that night against the Heat and wasn’t with the team.

The Cavaliers, Rockets and Clippers, all entrenched in playoff races, planned to meet with Simmons starting Friday, according to multiple reports.

His agent, Bernie Lee, pushed back in a statement to Lewis and said Simmons “hasn’t met with anyone nor is he. We are having conversations with the Nets and when there is something to be said we will let everyone know.”

“He’s not with the team,” head coach Jordi Fernandez said pregame, “and I’m not gonna make comments on it. Right now, we’re focusing on the game we have [Friday], and then at some point we’ll be able to address it, for sure.”

The Nets survived the trade deadline without any more deals, any more selling, any more new pieces arriving and needing to get acclimated on the fly.

But in the immediate aftermath, the imminent buyout of Simmons emerged as a plausible scenario, and by the time Friday’s tipoff arrived and Simmons wasn’t on the bench, the 28-year-old point guard’s reality had settled into place — though a final transaction still hadn’t been finalized and announced by the time the Nets tried for their fourth win in five games.

Simmons is playing on the final season of a five-year, $177.2 million deal that he originally signed with the 76ers in July 2019, and that the Nets acquired in the trade that sent James Harden to Philadelphia at the 2022 deadline.

In Simmons’ first two-plus seasons with the Nets, he played in just 57 of the team’s 191 games after the blockbuster became official.

The Nets paid him approximately $86.3 million during that time, meaning he earned approximately $1.5 million per game played. (He also missed all eight of the Nets’ playoff games, though that’s not included here.)

This season, Simmons has played in 33 of the team’s 51 games — still appearing on the injury report for a variety of reasons, but managing to contribute, in doses, to a rebuilding roster.

He’s earning $40.3 million, though he’s paid quarterly and it’s possible that he returns some of his salary as a result of the buyout.

“It’s always tough, man,” Cam Johnson said Friday following their shootaround when asked about Simmons navigating his injuries. “Injuries are always tough. They’re a part of our game, but we all wish they weren’t. He’s fought to come back from them.”

Simmons’ arrival in February 2022 officially marked the first stage of the breakup of the Big 3 comprised of Harden, Kevin Durant and Kyrie Irving, but the arrival of the three-time All-Star known for his defense also meant that the Nets wouldn’t, on paper at least, experience much of a drop-off if everything unfolded as expected. Simmons didn’t play the rest of the year, though.

And by the time the trade deadline arrived in 2023, Irving and Durant had both forced their way out. Simmons was the last one standing.

Simmons quickly went from a piece attempting to mesh into a contending roster to the incumbent after a roster overhaul to merely an expensive part — a really, really expensive one — trying to fit into a rebuild.

This year, Johnson said, Simmons still managed to move better. He averaged 6.2 points, 6.9 assists and 5.2 rebounds on a Nets team shuffling new pieces in and out of its lineup amid trades.

He split time as their ball hander with Dennis Schroder and then De’Angelo Russell after Schroder was sent to the Warriors and Brooklyn reacquired one-time All-Star Russell from the Lakers in a separate deal.

“I’ve been saying it all along: He’s gonna continue to get comfortable,” Johnson said. “He’s gonna continue to get back into game shape, game-management shape and season shape, so yeah, it’s definitely tough but he’s been fighting through it.”

Still, his Nets exit felt inevitable.

That was only amplified Friday with the talks of a buyout continuing and veering toward the finish line.

And while they stayed quiet at the deadline, perhaps the Nets’ most consequential move will occur afterward — officially ending an era that felt like it had unofficially reached its conclusion long before.