Kevin Durant missed his fifth straight game Tuesday with a strained left hamstring. And though the Nets have offered no definitive timeline for his return, Brooklyn coach Steve Nash said he expects his star back before the All-Star break.
“Yeah, I do,” Nash said before the Nets’ 127-118 win over the Kings. “But again, we’re just trying to monitor and be cautious. We definitely have kind of slowed things down in that respect — not putting any pressure on him, not trying to rush him back in any capacity and just make sure that we give him the right amount of time to be more than healed, to be strong and conditioned to come back to the team.
“So we’re monitoring it. We’re not in a rush. But I don’t think he’ll be out until the All-Star break.”
After Tuesday’s game vs. the Kings, the Nets have four games before the break: the Magic, Mavericks, Spurs and Rockets. With the All-Star Game scheduled for March 7 in Atlanta and Durant the captain of the Eastern Conference squad — Team Durant — it begs the question of whether he and his hamstring would be better suited skipping the event altogether.
“As far as Kevin goes, I don’t know,” Nash said. “I don’t know. I haven’t discussed that. I’m not sure how the league would approach that. So I probably couldn’t say anything meaningful on that one.”
Durant has been so stellar this season it’s easy to forget he missed 18 months with a June 2019 ruptured Achilles. Between the hamstring and a COVID-19 contact tracing quarantine, he’s missed eight of the past nine games, his only appearance leading the Nets to a Feb. 13 win in his return to Golden State.
“Obviously we don’t want to rush that because there’s a bigger picture,” James Harden said.
“We want Kevin to be 100 percent healthy whenever he’s out there. We don’t want to rush him back,” DeAndre Jordan said. “It’s not worth it to rush him back at this point. We want to make sure he’s completely healthy, and whenever he’s back we can insert him right back into the lineup. He’s Kevin Durant.”
The Nets waived three players ahead of the deadline to guarantee deals for the season — Andre Roberson, Iman Shumpert and Noah Vonleh. But it doesn’t mean the Nets are instantly saying goodbye.
Roberson and Shumpert, both wing defenders, intend to stick around at least a little longer. They plan to ink 10-day deals when they clear waivers on Friday, according to The Athletic. Meanwhile, the team also fill the third spot created by adding power forward Tyler Cook on another 10-day contract, according to ESPN.
Cook averaged 20 points, 10 rebounds and 4.6 assists in seven games for Iowa in the G-League bubble.
While Shumpert made his season debut Tuesday, so did Nic Claxton. The second-year big man had five points, one rebound and a block in 13 minutes.
“I thought he was great,” Nash said. “Not an easy thing to do. Hasn’t played in a basketball game for a year or more, so to have him come out there and be active and look as fluid as he did, that’s not easy, and I thought he really helped us.”
“I think he’s got a really good future. How soon that’ll be come is yet to be seen, but he can make an impact for us and if he can slowly gain experience here and get in the rotation it gives us another player for depth, it gives us a player with length and athleticism, so it’s great to have him back.”
Jordan was coming off an energetic outing in the Sunday win at the Clippers, with a season-high-tying 13 points on 6 of 7 shooting, 11 rebounds and a season-high-tying four blocks. Nash said that’s what an engaged Jordan should look like.
“He’s been competing,” Nash said. “He’s been really locked-in and been active and competing, and with his size and athleticism, he’s going to produce and have numbers when he has that type of energy and that feeling that he’s enjoying himself and playing with everything he has. When he does that, he’s really, really good.”
He scored 10 on 4-for-5 shooting in Tuesday’s 127-118 win. He also added eight rebounds.