NBA: Nets need to see Ben Simmons’ old game

NEW YORK — The scouting report sounded strikingly similar to the one that described Ben Simmons when he was an All-Star in Philadelphia, not a backup in Brooklyn. “I’m still fast, I can still jump high, I’m still strong,” Simmons said. Not last season. Not when he was so ineffective in his return from back surgery that Simmons couldn’t even protest much when he was bounced first from his normal position, then eventually from Nets coach Jacque Vaughn’s rotation entirely. “It’s hard for a coach to really trust and believe in you when he’s not seeing it, right?” Simmons said. “And I’m not able to physically do it and he can’t see it, then as a coach I would do the same thing: ‘Well, I’m not going to play you if you’re not able to compete and do the things I know you can do.’” Simmons’ relationship with Vaughn has healed and it appears his body has, too. Reinstalled as the point guard, Simmons was moving quickly and decisively again in the preseason after playing just 42 games the last two seasons. It gives the Nets hope that, no longer with Kevin Durant or Kyrie Irving, at least they now have the old Ben Simmons. “He looks in shape, he looks confident and pretty aggressive, and it looks like they’ve got a package of stuff in for him,” 76ers coach Nick Nurse said. That was apparent right away in the Nets’ exhibition schedule, when Simmons powered past LeBron James on a drive into the lane for a basket early in their opening game against the Lakers in Las Vegas. If Simmons can keep it up when the games count, Brooklyn will have a player like few others in the NBA, a 6-foot-10 point guard who is quick enough to blow by most players on offense and strong enough to guard any position on defense. “Ben Simmons going downhill is a problem,” said Doc Rivers, who coached Simmons in Philadelphia and is now an ESPN analyst. But if the Nets get the Simmons of the last two seasons, when at first he didn’t play because of mental health reasons and then couldn’t play because of physical ones, they will be stuck with a player who is owed more than $78 million over the next two years and is just 5 for 36 in his career from 3-point range, having never developed