Harden on growing COVID list

The Nets have a COVID-19 epidemic in their locker room and on their hands.

Brooklyn had nine players missing Tuesday against Toronto, seven of them due to the NBA’s health and safety protocols. And since all of them are vaccinated, the only way they would have gone into protocol was not due to contact tracing but with a positive test or an inconclusive one. After Paul Millsap had been put in COVID protocols Monday night, LaMarcus Aldridge, DeAndre’ Bembry, Jevon Carter and James Johnson went in Tuesday morning, with All-Star James Harden and Bruce Brown added shortly before the Nets’ 131129 overtime win over the Raptors.

Already without All-Star Kyrie Irving and Joe Harris, the Nets had just eight players available, the league minimum. Kevin Durant — the last man standing of the Big 3, and questionable with a sore right ankle, had to play or the game would have been postponed.

To call the situation a mess would be a grave understatement.

“Yeah it’s unfortunate, for sure. First we concern ourselves with their health and safety,” Steve Nash said. “Fortunately for us, they’re predominantly asymptomatic. But there will be a period of time required for them to test negative and have our full group available again.”

That period of time will be 10 days, or return a pair of negative PCR tests taken 24 hours apart. And that’s only because all the Nets — other than Irving, of course — are vaccinated.

The Nets started a stretch of five games in eight days Tuesday, making the timing even more damaging.

Of the initial quintet of players to go into quarantine, most seem to have mild cases with no symptoms. But even 90 minutes before tipoff, Nash acknowledged the possibility — scratch that, likelihood — of more cases.

“First of all, we’re not naive enough to not have concerns about more people contracting the virus. But that’s out of our hands. We just have to see what the protocols are,” said Nash, who confirmed that multiple assistants and team personnel have also entered protocols.

“We can’t do a lot right now except wait for results to come in and control what’s in our hands. So we’re in a sense playing the waiting game, and going to be ready to audible depending on what happens.”