When Kevin Durant signed with the Brooklyn Nets, he likely expected to compete for championships alongside Kyrie Irving for the foreseeable future. But their first title bid together fell short when Irving suffered an ankle injury in the second round of the postseason against the Milwaukee Bucks, and now, Irving’s status surrounding the COVID-19 vaccine has put his availability for next season in jeopardy. Unvaccinated players on teams based in New York will not be allowed to play in home games this season thanks to a city-wide mandate. Irving has given no indication on whether he plans to get vaccinated.
But Durant remains optimistic about Irving’s status. “I’m envisioning Kyrie being a part of our team,” Durant told reporters Wednesday. “Maybe I’m just naïve, but that’s just how I feel. But everybody here has that confidence in themselves and our group, that if we keep doing it we can do something special.”
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The former MVP went on to say that Irving had not sought his counsel on the matter. “I don’t go out giving advice like that, you know what I mean?” Durant said. “So this is his decision, that’s his choice, we all respect it, I mean this is way bigger than hoop so I don’t even feel comfortable talking to him about, you know, stuff like this. But I’m just here to support and here to come in here and do my job as one of the leaders on the team and, you know, when things get figured out, I got trust and hope that it will get figured out.
Irving does not need to be vaccinated to play for the Nets in road games, but ESPN’s Adrian Wojnarowski and Brian Windhorst have reported that it is unclear how willing the Nets will be to accommodate Irving as a part-time player. Head coach Steve Nash has declined to move practices outside of New York City to allow Irving to participate, and the All-Star guard was forced to attend Nets Media Day remotely last week.
When asked if the Nets would have their whole roster available to start the season, Nash responded “as it stands now, no,” and added “so we’ll see what happens.” If Irving isn’t vaccinated by the time the season opens — in less than two weeks — the Nets will have to decide if they are comfortable allowing him to play only on the road or if they would rather bench him altogether. Irving could lose game checks worth approximately $380,000 apiece for every home game he misses.
With or without Irving, the Nets should be among the very best teams in the NBA. Lineups featuring Durant and James Harden without Irving played only 199 possessions last season, according to Cleaning the Glass, but the Nets outscored their opponents by 19.9 points per 100 possessions in those spans. Bench units with either Durant or Harden should still be quite effective, and the Nets used quite a bit of roster-building capital this offseason securing insurance against the extended absence of any of their scorers. They used the mid-level exception on former Spurs guard Patty Mills and their first-round pick on electric rookie Cam Thomas. Both could face expanded roles if Irving cannot play in some or all of Brooklyn’s games. As Bruce Brown pointed out, the Nets worked through absences last year and will be able to do the same this season.
“Ky’s a big part of this team. We want him to be back. We can’t wait for him to be back. But it’s next man up,” Bruce Brown said. “Last year, when guys were down, guys were hurt, the next man filled in and did pretty well, so now it’s just next man up. But he’ll be back soon.”
The Nets should be able to hold their own even shorthanded, but these role players are not Irving. Brooklyn’s roster is built around the notion that their offense will be so dominant that it can overcome a possibly weak defense. Dropping from three stars down to two makes that a more difficult proposition. Durant signed in Brooklyn to play with Irving. If Irving isn’t playing, Durant’s job becomes substantially harder.
