Nets’ Harden wants to deliver a big shot — right into Kyrie’s arm NO CAM DO!
New Knick Reddish out ‘a while’ with ankle injury before joining rotation logjam
Instead of taking a big shot, James Harden wants to deliver one — right into Kyrie Irving’s arm.
If Irving gets vaccinated against the coronavirus, the Brooklyn Nets become an almost unstoppable offense with three of the most dynamic scorers in the NBA.
If he continues to refuse, the Nets might just continue to be a team that loses as often as it wins at home, where Irving is ineligible to play because of New York City’s vaccine mandate for professional athletes playing in public venues.
After the Nets looked as good as ever in a 138-112 rout of Chicago on Wednesday with Irving in the lineup, Harden was ready to take matters into his own hands to make sure his fellow All-Star guard could stick around.
“I’m going to give him the shot,” Harden said with a smile.
A night later, Irving was again away from the team, Kevin Durant got a night to rest and the Nets were routed 130-109 by the Oklahoma City Thunder, falling to 11-11 at home.
On the one-year anniversary of the blockbuster trade that brought Harden to Brooklyn to set up an explosive Big Three, the Nets still don’t know when they will be able to deliver on their promise more than half the time.
“Hopefully towards later in the season, or maybe hopefully after All-Star break — well, hopefully sooner than that, but I’m just speaking after All-Star break — hopefully we can have our full roster and catch a real rhythm to where we know what the hell we got in this locker room,” Harden said.
Irving has played three games since the Nets decided to bring him back to play in all the road games where there is no vaccine mandate. They won two, losing Monday when Harden sat out in Portland on the second night of a cross-country back-to-back.
They rebounded with the romp over the East-leading Bulls, with Harden saying afterward that the Nets have “got to get Ky to be able to play in home games.”
But coach Steve Nash said Thursday he’s gotten no indication from either Irving or
New York City that there is any more reason for optimism of him playing at Barclays Center.
“I’ve not heard anything at all,” Nash said. “So for me, it’s just, he’ll be playing on the road.”
That will help the Nets in the short term. Starting Monday, they begin a stretch with 11 of 14 games on the road — though Irving won’t be eligible to play at Golden State because of San Francisco’s vaccine mandate.
In the meantime, Miami has caught Brooklyn for second place in the East and defending champion Milwaukee is just a half-game behind. The Nets have gone just 5-6 since a coronavirus outbreak in the middle of December landed at one point 10 players in the NBA’s health and safety protocols.
Nash said the tough stretch has given the Nets an opportunity to learn about themselves. On the other hand, they already knew the obvious lesson: They aren’t the same without Irving.
“That is true. We haven’t had our whole group. We’re better when we have our whole group, in almost all scenarios,” Nash said. “Having said that, there is slippage since we came back from the COVID break.”
Irving is one of the few known unvaccinated players in the NBA, and players such as Golden State’s Andrew Wiggins and Washington’s Bradley Beal eventually got their shots before mandates in their cities would have sidelined them in home games.
Durant and Harden have said they won’t pressure Irving. They know that when he plays, the Nets are good enough to blow away the East leaders on their home floor.
Without him, they’re even beatable by some of the NBA’s worst on their own court.
And exactly halfway through their season, that’s about all the Nets know for sure.
“It feels different when we got everybody there. Like last night was how it’s supposed to be the majority of the time, you know what I mean?” Harden said. “But we’re dealing with whatever we’re dealing with, so we’ve got to just go with the flow, and figure it out game by game.”
Cam Reddish won’t begin his Knicks tenure with a revenge game against the Hawks.
The Knicks are headed to Reddish’s old home in Atlanta for a matchup against their new nemesis on Saturday, but Reddish is out for “a while,” Tom Thibodeau said Friday.
Reddish has been dealing with an ankle sprain for much of this season and aggravated it during a Jan. 9 game against the Clippers, leaving after just three minutes of action. Thibodeau wouldn’t define “a while,” but said Reddish had joined the team in New York and was taking a physical.
His current and former teammate, RJ Barrett, welcomed the move.
“It’s great to play with my Duke brother again,” a smiling Barrett said Friday. “It’s gonna be a lot of fun, I’m happy, can’t wait til he gets here.”
Barrett said he gave Reddish the “rundown” on Thursday after the trade was announced.
Barrett, Reddish and Zion Williamson were the top three recruits in their high school class in 2018, and joined up for a single season at Duke. That Duke team was knocked off in the Elite Eight by Michigan State, and dominated the 2019 draft, with Williamson going first to the Pelicans, Barrett third to the Knicks and Reddish tenth to the Hawks.
Now Reddish figures to slot in behind Barrett in a crowded wing rotation in New York.
Hawks GM Travis Schlenk said Friday that Barrett had requested a trade after it was clear in the offseason that he would be moved to the bench after starting in his first two seasons.
“Cam had come to us during the offseason and expressed the desire to maybe get to a situation where he could have a little bigger role,” Schlenk said. “He went about it the right way, there was no public proclamation.”
Presumably, the Knicks would not have given up a first-round pick for Reddish without planning on giving him minutes. But
Thibodeau famously has no patience for erratic defense, which Reddish has been known to provide. And there’s no obvious slot for him in the rotation. Barrett is blossoming into the team’s best player, and Quentin Grimes, Julius Randle, Evan Fournier and Alec Burks are among those logging heavy minutes on the wing.
Thibodeau acknowledged that reality. “Sometimes a change of scenery is good for people, so we’ll see how it unfolds...We’re loaded at the wing position right now,” he said Friday.
At the same time, the Knicks badly need offense, where Reddish has improved this season in fewer minutes. “I don’t think you can have enough wings, that’s sort of the way our league has gone, and I like his versatility,” Thibs added. “He can play three positions, and in today’s NBA, I think that’s important.”
With Reddish out indefinitely because of the ankle injury, Thibodeau wouldn’t commit to whether he would start or come off the bench at first.
Barrett’s scouting report was more effusive. “He’s 6-8, he’s very skilled, shoot the ball, finish with both hands, plays great defense,” he said.
There’s no question Reddish is capable of all of those things. The question in his pro career has always been if he can deliver all of them at once. If he gets it all together while staying healthy under Thibodeau, the Knicks got a steal.
KNOXED OUT
Cutting bait on Kevin Knox in the Reddish trade means the Knicks’ most stunning streak continues. No player they’ve drafted in the first round has received a second contract from the team since Charlie Ward (picked in 1994) in 1999.
Knox (the No. 9 pick in 2018) followed recent lottery picks Frank Ntilikina (2017) and Kristaps Porzingis (2015) out the door. Barrett, eligible for an extension this offseason, could break the curse. Mitchell Robinson is an unrestricted free agent this offseason, although he was picked in the second round.