Ben Simmons tears his Achilles tendon days before his Kings debut season

Ben Simmons' comeback has been stopped before the season even started.

The Sacramento Kings said Sunday that Simmons tore his right Achilles tendon during a live drill at practice. He will have surgery. The injury is likely to end his season before the Kings play a regular-season game.

A strong camp cut short

Simmons, 30, signed a one-year, $3.5 million deal with Sacramento on Sept. 4. He had worked out for general manager Scott Perry in Miami and then visited the team's practice facility, where he passed an in-depth medical exam and impressed coach Doug Christie and his staff.

The plan was for the 6-foot-10 Simmons to play alongside rookie point guard Darius Acuff Jr. and help all over the floor. He had a strong training camp and averaged 10.5 points in about 17 minutes over two preseason games.

"Not the end of my story"

Simmons responded on social media.

"This injury is another chapter in my journey, not the end of my story," he wrote.

He added that "adversity doesn't define you. How you respond to it does."

A long road back already

The injury is another blow for a player who was once one of the brightest young stars in the NBA. The Australian was the No. 1 pick in 2016. He was Rookie of the Year and made three straight All-Star teams from 2019 to 2021 with Philadelphia.

Back problems derailed him after that. He had back surgery in 2022 and again in 2024 and sat out last season to get his body right. This camp was supposed to be his fresh start.

It is also an eerie echo of his first NBA camp. In 2016 he broke a bone in his right foot in the final scrimmage of training camp and missed his entire rookie season.