After a confusing night around Brooklyn Nets star Kevin Durant’s status at the Barclays Center, who was removed from the lineup for the game and the third quarter due to contact tracking protocols, Durant will not play in Philadelphia on Saturday and would be there some can miss. games for the second time in a month, sources told ESPN.
Durant had contacted an employee on Friday who tested positive for the coronavirus on Friday night, just hours after an unclear test shortly before the Nets’ 123-117 loss to the Toronto Raptors.
That inspired a dramatic scene in the third quarter: a Nets official who informed Durant that he had to leave the bank to isolate himself prompted one of the franchise’s stars to trudge through Barclays’ guts, where he supposedly tweeted “Free Me” in the last minutes of the game.
The Nets reported the individual’s unfinished test to the league office on Friday afternoon and were ultimately instructed to take Durant out of pre-game warm-ups. Nets general manager Sean Marks was on the phone with the league office and passed the information on to the group on the track.
Moments later, Steve Nash and his coaching staff were notified that Durant would not be available to start the game.
Durant left the track before the game, but was cleared by the NBA to return to the bench shortly after the start of the first quarter.
Durant was initially out of the game while that result was being judged. [de la prueba]”said the league statement.” Under the league’s health and safety protocols, we don’t have to quarantine a player until close contact has a confirmed positive test. “
Before leaving the field for the last time in the third quarter, Durant sat on the bench while officials discussed a play on which he had committed his fifth offense of the evening. The error was canceled, but Durant never re-entered.
When the requested time was up, a team official told Durant that he would not be able to continue in the game. Durant apparently shook his head in frustration. As he walked back through the tunnel, Durant threw down his water bottle.
Durant, who played 19 minutes into the game, continued to tweet Friday night after the game, questioned the timeline and competition details.
In the wake of stars LeBron James and Giannis Antetokounmpo ridiculing the league and NBPA’s plans for an NBA All-Star Game in Atlanta on March 7, a sense of rebellion emerged from the superstars at the bottom of the week.
“I don’t understand the whole thing where he couldn’t play, then he came onto the field and then they took him back,” said Nets security guard James Harden. “A lot is happening. Too much is happening. It’s overwhelming. We are in the middle of a difficult game, and these games will add up, especially when we talk about qualifying and playing in the playoffs … pick up the pace. It’s overwhelming. It’s frustrating. “
“[Durant] feels the same. Especially with him who already had it and we do tests every day. Has been negative [en las pruebas]. So I don’t understand what the problem is. The game should have been postponed. When we talk about contact tracking. He was close to all of us. So I don’t understand why he wasn’t allowed to play, then he was allowed to play and then he was taken off the field. If that were the case, we should have postponed the game. “
Durant contracted the corona virus in March and had those antibodies in early January when he missed three games due to contact tracing. Four weeks later, Durant could miss a similar six-day period, sources said.
After Friday’s game, Nash said he sometimes struggled to compartmentalize Durant’s absence during the game.
“I was probably a little distracted thinking about what it means for our team in the long run,” said Nash. “We’ve already given several players a lot of minutes and if Kevin isn’t playing, are we going to keep adding minutes to the remaining players? So maybe I got a little distracted from the bigger picture.”
The Nets will play Saturday (Philadelphia) and Tuesday (Detroit) and return home on Wednesday (Indiana). The Nets will begin a trip to the west coast against Golden State this Saturday.