Kevin Durant of Brooklyn Nets will not travel, may play more games due to contact tracking protocols

After a confusing night surrounding the status of Brooklyn Nets star Kevin Durant at the Barclays Center – which included him being sidelined in the pregame and third quarter for contact tracking protocols – Durant will not travel to Philadelphia for the game and could be lost to several games for the second time in a month, ESPN sources say.

Durant came into contact Friday with an associate who tested positive for coronavirus on Friday night, just hours after returning an inconclusive test shortly before the Nets’ 123-117 loss to the Toronto Raptors.

That inspired the most dramatic scene in the third quarter: a Nets official who informed Durant that he had to leave the bank for solitary confinement, causing a terrified franchise star to break into the bowels of Barclays, where he probably wrote on Twitter: “Free me.” in the last minutes of the game.

The Nets briefed the league office on the individual’s inconclusive test on Friday afternoon and were eventually instructed to remove Durant from the warm-ups. Nets general manager Sean Marks had been on the phone with the league office and had given the floor in court.

Moments later, Steve Nash and his coaching team learned that Durant would not be available to begin the game.

Durant left the floor before the game, only for the NBA to wipe him off and return to the bench shortly after the start of the first quarter.

“Durant was initially eliminated from the game while the result was being revised,” the league said in a statement. “According to the league’s health and safety protocols, it is not necessary for a player to be quarantined until close contact has a confirmed positive test.”

Before Durant left the field for the last time in the third quarter, he sat on the bench as officers reviewed a play in which he had taken his fifth foul of the evening. The foul was overturned, but Durant did not check in.

As time went on, a team official told Durant that he would not be able to continue the game. Durant shook his head in frustration. As he returned through the tunnel, Durant tossed his bottle of water.

Durant, who played 19 minutes in the game, continued to post on Twitter on Friday night after the game, questioning the chronology and details of the league.

Following in the footsteps of NBA stars LeBron James and Giannis Antetokounmpo, ridiculing the NBA and NBPA plans for an All-Star game in Atlanta on March 7, a feeling of revolt of the superstar appeared at the end of the week.

“I don’t understand everything he couldn’t play in, then he came on the field, then they took him back,” said Nets goalkeeper James Harden. “It’s just a lot of things happening. Too much is happening. It’s kind of overwhelming. We’re in the middle of a tough game, and these games will come together, especially if we’re talking about seeding the playoffs … to catch a rhythm. It’s overwhelming. . It is frustrating. “

“[Durant] it feels the same. Especially if he already has it and we are tested every day. It was negative. So I don’t understand what the problem is. The game should have been postponed, that’s how I feel. If we talk about following contacts. He was all around us. So I don’t understand why he wasn’t allowed to play, then he was allowed to play, then he was taken back off the field. If that were the case, we should have postponed the game. “

Durant contracted the coronavirus in March and still had those antibodies in early January, when he was lost for four games due to contact tracking. Four weeks later, Durant could be lost for a similar six-day period, sources said.

After Friday’s game, Nash said he sometimes struggled to compartmentalize Durant’s absence during the game.

“I probably had a little fun thinking about what it means for our team in the long run,” Nash said. “We’ve been playing boys for a lot of minutes and if Kevin doesn’t play, we’ll run the remaining boys for too many minutes? So maybe I was a little distracted by the big picture.”

The Nets have road games on Saturday (Philadelphia) and Tuesday (Detroit) and return home on Wednesday (Indiana). The Nets begin a trip to the West Coast next Saturday against Golden State.