Shorthanded Nets plan to play in L.A., but without Durant
The Nets have enough players to fly to Los Angeles and play their Christmas Day matchup against the Lakers, though Kevin Durant might not be among them.
Head coach Steve Nash said Thursday that James Harden has cleared the NBA’s health and safety protocols, but Nash said the Nets don’t expect any of their players still in the protocols to come out in time for the game. That would include Durant, the NBA’s leading scorer.
Brooklyn planning to play Saturday is an obvious positive sign, as was Chicago head coach Billy Donovan announcing after practice Thursday that the Bulls no longer have any players on the protocols list. The Bulls had as many as 10 on that list last week, when the league postponed two of their games as a result.
The Nets have had their past three scheduled games postponed — among the NBA’s nine postponements — when a coronavirus outbreak left them with a league-high 10 players in protocols. Nash said Harden, Paul Millsap and Jevon Carter also had cleared protocols, though rookies Cam Thomas, Kessler Edwards and David Duke Jr. had since entered.
Teams need a minimum of eight players to start a game. Nash said the Nets have more than enough to do that.
It’s unclear if they will have another practice before the game Saturday. Nash said it’s only in the past day that healthy players have been able to return to the practice facility for individual workouts.
“It’s tricky,” Nash said. “We haven’t been able to do a lot, but we do what we can and we’ll continue to just adapt as the rules and mandates come.”
By late Thursday afternoon, based on team injury reports or similar disclosures, there were more than 90 NBA players dealing with a virus-related issue — often a positive test, though not always.
The list included players such as Giannis Antetokounmpo, Luka Doncic and Trae Young. All three are scheduled to be part of the NBA’s five-game holiday schedule.
Later Thursday, the Wizards announced guard Bradley Beal would miss that night’s game at New York because of health and safety protocols. Beal, who missed the chance to play in the Olympics last summer after testing positive, said before this season that he was unvaccinated.
The Pistons said on Thursday evening they had added four players to the protocols, where they joined rookie Cade Cunningham, the team’s leading scorer.
Players can enter and exit the health and safety protocols list quickly in some cases, some teams do not release updated numbers except when mandated by league rule, and not everyone on the list has tested positive for the coronavirus.
NBA Commissioner Adam Silver said this week in an interview with ESPN that positive-testing players who have received booster shots tend to show, at worst, very mild symptoms. The league says 97% of players are fully vaccinated; the National Basketball Players Association says 65% are boosted, and it is a top priority of the union right now to get that number much higher.
Meanwhile, a person with direct knowledge of the matter said the NBA and the NBPA are continuing discussions on whether to change the current protocols about returning to play after a positive test — something that typically has taken 10 days or more in most cases. The person spoke on condition of anonymity because nothing had been finalized.
Teams are being allowed to sign players to replace those sidelined by positive tests, and at least 40 such hardship contracts — which won’t count against a team’s salary cap or luxury tax numbers — have been executed in the past few days.