Former NBA Star, Ben Simmons, Might Pivot To A Career In Professional Sport Fishing

From the hardwood to professional fishing?

It’s funny how the twists and turns of life play out. Professional basketball player Ben Simmons is a former No. 1 overall pick. After a stellar college career at LSU that had many predicting him to be the “next LeBron James,” he started his NBA journey with the Philadelphia 76ers.

To say his career has been underwhelming would be an understatement.

Though he’s been an NBA All-Star three times, and even won the 2018 NBA Rookie of the Year award, his basketball career in later years has been plagued with injury and what I’d guess you could call strange mental blocks. As he’s navigated through all of that, it seems pretty obvious that he’s not that in love with the game, and he’s slowly become more and more interested in things outside of basketball… like fishing.

Simons has actually become very invested in something called the Sport Fishing Championship. The league, founded in 2021, has a lot of celebrity investors (like former NFL wide receiver Randy Moss, professional golfer Scottie Scheffler and former Florida Georgia Line member Brian Kelley). And Simmons is the controlling operator of a team called the South Florida Sails.

The on-a-break NBA player told Andscape that it’s a new take on professional fishing:

“The way I see it, it’s like the new Formula 1 for fishing. The new LIV Golf for fishing. The first real competitive sport fishing championship. It’s a league of 16 teams, which is growing and expanding.

And so, we’ll go out there and compete in various different tournaments, and there’ll be a champion crowned at the end. It’s a point-scored system. So, you’re fishing for white marlin, blue marlin, sailfish and striped marlin. There are all different point systems for each one.”

So for now, he’s trading out his sneakers for some fishing poles.

He’s got a 53 Scout center console, and he’s going all in on competitive fishing. Simmons thinks the landscape is still untapped, and he’s excited that he’s gettin in early on Sport Fishing Championship:

“It’s a very niche sport. And if you don’t know, you don’t know. But once you experience it and get out there and see what it’s about, you’re kind of in awe of what the sport is. And that’s just something I’ve always been interested in in terms of the sport of fishing. The technique.

And there’s so much to it that people just don’t understand. These guys are fishing on million-dollar vessels, and they’re out for days at a time. So, it’s tedious and gritty, but a lot of fun. It’s one of those worlds where you just got to kind of experience it, get into it and see what it’s about.”

Could Ben Simmons leave behind his professional basketball playing career and go all in on professional fishing? He’s an angler himself, but still wants to gain more experience before he’d even consider putting himself on his SFC team.

And for now, he’s keeping the door open to returning to the NBA… but he’s putting just as much work into fishing as he is basketball:

“For me, I’m very blessed to not have to be in that situation where I need to fight right now. But I want to get to the best of my ability and physical peak to compete. Otherwise, it doesn’t really serve me any purpose.”

I think me being very involved and knowing what’s going on and having hands on it is going to push it. But I’m every day with it. Same as the gym. Those two things right now are in my life. I don’t have too much free time.”

If Ben Simmons does really go for it, let’s hope he’s gotten a little bit better at fishing than he was back when the NBA played their post-season in a bubble at Disney World… and he picked up fishing as a hobby to pass the time:

Check out some footage of him out on the water last summer:

The post Former NBA Star, Ben Simmons, Might Pivot To A Career In Professional Sport Fishing first appeared on Whiskey Riff.