The Brooklyn Nets are fighting for not just their playoff lives, but their Play-In lives as well. With just 12 regular season games remaining, only three of which Kyrie Irving is eligible to play in, things can occasionally look pretty bleak in Brooklyn–even with all of the 50 and 60 point games we're seeing.

Adding more to their woes, Ben Simmons has yet to suit up for his new team. In fact, he hasn't suited up for any team since the tail end of June 2021.

“Ben had an epidural while we were in Orlando. The idea being to try to accelerate his recovery and take some of the irritation down, so hopefully that’ll help relieve some of the symptoms and be able to recover quicker and accelerate that process,” head coach Steve Nash offered prior to the Nets' last-second loss to Luka Doncic, Spencer Dinwiddie and the Dallas Mavericks on Wednesday.

According to WebMD, an epidural is an injection that goes into your “epidural space,” which is right outside of the membrane that protects your spinal cord. So how has Simmons taken to that treatment? “I don't have any update on that,” Nash said, prior to the Nets game versus the Portland Trail Blazers Friday.

Has Simmons had an MRI? “I believe he has but I think that's old news. I'm not sure that it's- I think that was a couple weeks ago,” Nash added.

So it sounds like maybe Simmons has had two of these since the trade, as SNY's Ian Begley noted Simmons was set for one the day after the trade went down. Assuming Nash is right, he may have had another one a couple weeks ago.

According to ESPN's Adrian Wojnarowski and Ramona Shelburne, Simmons is dealing with a flare up related to the L-4 disc, but the team still hopes he can come back in time for the playoffs.

Brooklyn Nets star Ben Simmons has remained sidelined with an irritation of the L-4 disc of the lower spine, but there’s hope he can return for a “couple” of regular games prior to the Eastern Conference playoffs, sources told ESPN on Wednesday.

On Friday, reporters were curious if there are certain physical benchmarks Ben Simmons needs to hit before he can play for the Nets.

“That's really a question for the medical staff. I don't know the ins-and-outs of his back injury,” Nash admitted.

Simmons missed time during the 2019-20 season with a severe back issue. Then head coach Brett Brown shared that Simmons was in so much pain that he was nauseas. It might have cost him the remainder of that season (the issue beginning shortly after All-Star break that year). But the onset of the pandemic put the season on pause and Simmons actually had a chance to return to the lineup for the bubble. He dislocated his knee as soon as he returned and that issue ultimately needed surgery.

During the 2020-21 campaign, the issue did not pose significant problems as he appeared in 58 games. He did admit to having back tightness in October of 2021, when he arrived at Sixers' camp. But that issue apparently resolved and never cost him games. It was mental health that was cited for why he didn't play in Philadelphia this season.

But this back history begs the question: did the Nets see signs of this stuff early on when they acquired him? Or did it all happen post-trade? Is it possible they would not have made the same trade if they knew in February what they know today? Was some of this detectable? What's going on?

“I can't remember now, what happened right after the deal,” admitted Nash. “We were on the road, I think. Yeah, I can't remember where he was at when he got here.”

Nash does not recall if Simmons arrived at Nets camp dealing with a problem or if he was totally fine. “I can't remember what state-, what was that a month ago? I can't remember if he was having issues or if it flared up or it it was, – but he hasn't practiced yet for us.”

So what has he done? “He's done some individual workouts then he had the flare up, so that's the next step, that's a step he hasn't got back to yet, is individual on-court workouts.”

For Kevin Durant, Kyrie Irving and the rest of the team, the most important element here is that Simmons isn't even doing on-court workouts. We talked about Simmons not even attending certain games because the team didn't want his back tightening up on flights, or in hotel beds on the latest “Nothing but Nets podcast.”

And so with the Play-In so close, it gets harder and harder to look forward to Simmons' eventual return. He's got to get back to on-court individual workouts. That's where he flared what sound like a chronic issue up in the first place. If he can do that, he can ramp up to two-on-two, then later three-on-three, and eventually five-on-five. Then he'll need to progress through three high intensity full practices.

But the idea that he's going to come back healthy and ready to roll for monster, possibly, single-game-elimination matches with the season on the line, taking minutes away from say Bruce Brown or Nic Claxton just gets more difficult to imagine with each passing day.

And that spells bad news for Durant and Irving. Hopefully Simmons responds well to this epidural and can begin progressing through the requisite benchmarks. Because this team can use all the help they can get if they do make the playoffs.