BREAKING: $280m nightmare over as Simmons set to leave Nets, meet with new NBA suitors

Ben Simmons’ colossal disappointment of a Nets tenure is all but over.

The point guard, who has missed 207 out of a possible 297 games across his two-plus years in Brooklyn, was finalising a buyout with the team Friday, according to The Post’s Brian Lewis.

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CONTENDERS: Where Simmons could go… and how it may end in an unlikely NBA title

He was ruled out of their game against the Heat earlier in the morning and listed as being away from the team.

The Cavaliers and Clippers will meet with Simmons on Friday, according to ESPN, and the outlet had previously added Thursday that the Rockets were also expected to be interested in the 28-year-old.

Simmons was playing on the final season of his five-year, $177.2 million ($A280m) deal that he originally signed with the 76ers in July 2019 and that the Nets acquired in the deal that sent James Harden to Philadelphia at the 2022 trade deadline.

Across 33 games and 24 starts this season, Simmons collected 6.2 points, 6.9 assist and 5.2 rebounds per game on a Nets team shuffling new pieces in and out of its lineup amid trades.And while they stayed quiet at the deadline, perhaps their most consequential move occurred one day later.

It closed a chapter that dated back to the end of their Big 3.

And it officially ended an era that felt like it’d unofficially reached its conclusion long before Friday.

This story was originally published on New York Post.