Nets' Kevin Durant Won't Return For Restarted NBA Playoffs

Getty Rare sight: Kevin Durant in a Nets uniform

If the NBA does come back from its coronavirus-induced hiatus and put on some type of postseason, there is good news for the top teams in the Eastern Conference and perhaps the top teams in the West: They won’t have to contend with Kevin Durant.

According to ESPN’s Adrian Wojnarowksi, Durant won’t suit up for the Nets at all this season even if the season does restart. “That’s not happening,” Wojnarowski said on his podcast.

Durant has been rehabbing from a ruptured Achilles tendon since last June when he suffered the injury while playing for the Warriors in the NBA Finals.

Durant was expected to miss all of this season when he opted to leave the Warriors last summer, signing a four-year, $164 million contract as part of a sign-and-trade with Brooklyn. But that was under the assumption that the Nets would be done playing sometime here in May, or perhaps June if they got lucky.

With a rebooted season unlikely to start until late June or early July, Durant would have had more than a full year to recover from the injury. That seemed to open the chance that Durant could return and play for the Nets, who currently sit with the No. 7 seed in the East.

Raptors are Most Likely Nets Playoff Matchup

If the NBA does come back, it’s unclear whether the league would attempt to play some number of regular-season games before starting the playoffs. But if so, the only movement the Nets could possibly see would be to move back to No. 8 in the East. They’re just a half-game ahead of Orlando.

The No. 6 seed is currently held by the Sixers and Pacers, and the Nets are 8.5 games behind those two teams.

That means the Nets would likely play Toronto, at No. 2, in the postseason. It’s possible that the third-seeded Celtics could catch the Raptors or that the Nets could slide back and face the Bucks in the first round of the playoffs.

Nets’ Power Structure Off Since Durant, Irving Arrival

The bubbling chatter about Durant remaining out for the year is some indication of the lack of cohesion within the Nets, who fired coach Kenny Atkinson in March despite the fact that Atkinson had kept his team in postseason contention even without major free-agent signees Kyrie Irving and Durant.

But reports cropped up that Durant and Irving, despite their extended roles as players in civilian clothing, wanted Atkinson gone. And Atkinson went.

Last week, Nets general manager Sean Marks, who is from New Zealand, told a news outlet there that he would not rule out a return of Durant this season.

That’s a $110 million question. In all seriousness, we’ve tried not to talk about his timeline a lot. He knows his body better than anybody. Our performance team and training staff have done a tremendous job getting him to this point, but I just don’t know how coming out of this pandemic will affect anybody, let alone Kevin.

When you’ve got enough invested in a player like Kevin, we’re never going to push him to come back. When the timing is right, he’ll be 100 percent when he gets on the court. I can tell you this though — before the pandemic, he looked like Kevin Durant and that’s a good thing.

That view, though, was countered by Rich Kleinman, Durant personal manager. On the Golic and Wingo radio show, Kleinman was asked about Durant coming back should the season restart.

“Honestly, not very realistic from my standpoint and not even spoken about.”