Ben Simmons Leads South Florida Sails to 2026 Walker’s Cay Open
ben simmons has another win on the board, this time as the controlling owner of the South Florida Sails. His team won the 2026 SFC Walker’s Cay Open over the weekend, a result that lands while he is still away from the NBA and saying he is spending more time “offline than on the phone.”
South Florida Sails at Walker’s Cay
The Sails’ victory came in the Sport Fishing Championship, where Simmons owns the team and now has a headline result to match the move. It also arrives after he posted from the Florida Keys a couple of days before publication, a small sign that his attention is pointed far from basketball.
That shift fits the shape of his current year. Simmons last played an NBA game on May 30, 2025, for the Los Angeles Clippers against the Denver Nuggets, and he was an unrestricted free agent after that stint. He played just 4:42 in Game 5 of that first-round series and then sat as a DNP-coach’s decision in Games 6 and 7.
Ben Simmons Beyond the NBA
His basketball résumé still carries weight: a nine-year NBA career, $203.3M in earnings, three All-Star selections from 2019 to 2021, Rookie of the Year in 2018 and the league steals title in 2020. Dirk Nowitzki summed up the ceiling Simmons once had before the 2025-26 season, saying, “I mean, he had all the talent in the world,’’” and adding, “Not quite sure all the stuff that happened there in Philly, but it was disappointing.”
The fishing season now sits in the same calendar space as the NBA’s busiest offseason stretch. The Sport Fishing Championship runs from April to October and overlaps the NBA Draft, Draft Combine, Summer League, free agency, training camp and preseason, then bumps up against the start of the 2026-27 season. Simmons has also reportedly expressed interest in trying to earn a spot ahead of the 2027 World Cup and 2028 Olympic Games, and he has played just twice for the Australian senior national team since the 2013 FIBA Oceania Championships.
For now, the clearest read on Simmons is the one he offered himself: he is online less, and his team is winning more. The Sails’ title gives him a concrete result in a sport where his name is now attached to the scoreline, not just the offseason chatter around his next basketball move.
