Nets Take Another Blow as Jordan Opts Out of Restart Due to COVID-19
As the NBA continues to work toward the restart of their season, which has been paused since March 11 due to the COVID-19 pandemic, it’s been a dizzying couple of weeks as teams prepare to head toward the bubble that is the Wide World of Sports Complex at Walt Disney World in Orlando. Tonight marks the deadline for teams to sign players to prepare for the bubble as there are guys that have opted out of playing in the restart. We’ve seen Willie Cauley-Stein, Trevor Ariza, Davis Bertans and Avery Bradley all make the decision to not play when the season begins again on July 30.
One team that is heading to the Sunshine State that is dealing with injuries and guys that are pulling out of the restart is the Brooklyn Nets. The Nets were extremely proactive in the offseason, signing Kevin Durant, Kyrie Irving and DeAndre Jordan to bolster their rotation. Of course, the team was looking to the 2020-21 season as Durant was expected to miss the year recovering from a torn Achilles suffered in the 2019 NBA Finals. Brooklyn fired Kenny Atkinson and replaced him with Jacque Vaughn, who won the two games that he was coach for before the season was paused but the team was still just 30-34 at the pause. That left them seventh in the Eastern Conference standings, half a game ahead of eighth-place Orlando. As it stands, they’d be in line to face the Raptors in the opening round of the playoffs if things don’t change.
The Nets now have to try and cull together a roster for the postseason as they replace several key pieces in their rotation. Durant hasn’t played all year and ruled out a return earlier this month even with the long pause for the COVID-19 pandemic. Irving played only 20 of the Nets’ 64 games before the pause before undergoing shoulder surgery in February. He’s been one of the most vocal players in the league regarding the restart and wasn’t even certain that he would go to Orlando to support his teammates. On Monday night, Jordan stated that he had tested positive for the coronavirus and as a result, he would not take part in the restart. Wilson Chandler, who reportedly was one of four Nets that contracted the coronavirus earlier this year, told ESPN that he was opting out on Sunday.
If that wasn’t enough, Spencer Dinwiddie reportedly tested positive for COVID-19 as well but has not officially opted out of the restart at this point in time. Nicolas Claxton has been ruled out for the year after undergoing arthroscopic surgery on the labrum of his left shoulder last week. That knocks five players and potentially a sixth depending on what Dinwiddie does, out of the rotation that the Nets would normally tend to deploy in a contest. Brooklyn did bring in Tyler Johnson, formerly of Miami and Phoenix, to fill a spot in the rotation. The Nets are planning on signing Justin Anderson to replace Chandler in the rotation and are planning on bringing in someone to take Jordan’s spot as well.
It’s going to be interesting to see how things will play out for the Nets given the loss of key personnel in their rotation. Will other players make the decision to step aside and leave the Nets a shambles for the restart? Could this decimation of one team’s roster lead other stars to potentially make the 11th hour decision to stay home and not make the trip to Orlando? The only thing that we know with any amount of certainty at this point in time is the fact that the Nets, should they ultimately make the trek, are going to be a much different team than we’ve seen for the majority of the season.
Will they have any success? That may be too much to ask given the personnel upheaval. One may have to worry about the potential discord this entire situation could create within the organization but for now, Brooklyn has to find players to fill out their rotation and prep for the playoffs.