Simon confident in Sydney's 'never satisfied' attitude

Sydney Kings guard Justin Simon has issued a warning to the rest of the league, stating his side’s 'never satisfied' attitude leaves them well-placed to win a second consecutive championship.

Simon arrived at the Kings this off-season after a 12-month stint in Germany. He came back to the NBL as a familiar face having won the league’s Defensive Player of the Year as a member of the Illawarra Hawks in NBL21.

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The Kings are one of two sides to have started their season 3-0 alongside the Perth Wildcats, and they sent a message to the rest of the competition with their first-half dismantling of Melbourne United over the weekend.

“As a group, we have that never-satisfied attitude,” Simon said on SEN. "Every night we go out there with that attitude knowing we haven’t fully established ourselves the way we want to.

“We’re putting our best foot forward, we’re competing, and we want to clean things up on [both] the offensive end and the defensive end.

“We’ve shown in spurts on both ends that we can be a really tough team to play against as far as how we move the ball and how many weapons we have, and how we can shrink the floor and force turnovers of defence.”

Upon signing for the Kings, Simon went on record in saying the Hawks were just “40 minutes too late” in bringing him back to Illawarra. Instead he joined their freeway series rivals to don the purple and gold.

In his solitary season in Germany since leaving the NBL, Simon and his Riesen Ludwigsburg side finished fourth in the German Bundesliga and third in the continental Basketball Champions League.

After being so close to success so far in his career, he says he’s hungry to reach the pinnacle of the NBL.

“I want to be a part of something special. I want to compete for a championship,” Simon said.

“My last two years as a professional I’ve been in the semi-finals and I’ve lost. I want to get to that Grnad Final, play in that and see what that environment brings out of me. I felt my best chance of doing that would be coming to Sydney, so when that presented itself I couldn’t pass it up.

“The NBL has always been a very attractive league as far as imports coming in. You see the Next Stars that have played in this league and advanced to the NBA, and the same with some of the imports.

“It’s always been an attractive league … I didn’t get too far from it when I left.”

Although Xavier Cooks stole the show in Sydney’s win over United with his monster dunk on Melbourne’s Isaac Humphries, Simon was plastered all over social media due to his on-court reaction to the slam.

He says Cooks’ effort set the tone for the rest of the game.

“In my eyes that was dunk of the year for sure. I like to think I’m a dunker, I’m very explosive, but I was just in shock.

“Xavier took off as far as he did [and] cocked it back on a great challenger in Humphries.

“It’s all part of the game and it was incredible. I think it really set the tone that night.”

Sydney next plays Cairns at home this Friday night.