With the NBA season having been postponed, the Brooklyn Nets have not formally ruled out the possibility of Kevin Durant playing this season. Jay Williams thinks they should.
Williams, who hosts ESPN’s “The Boardroom” with Durant, told Marc Berman of the New York Post on Monday that he does not feel it would be wise for Durant to go from not playing the entire season while recovering from a torn Achilles to being thrown into a highly competitive atmosphere.
“I think everybody’s antsy,” Williams said. “As it relates to Kevin, it depends on the timetable of those games and how condensed it is. It’s one thing to come back and start the beginning of next season where there’s time and space between games and [you can] keep your body ramped up the right way. But someone coming back off an injury and go right into a playoff scenario, I don’t think it’s feasible or fair on Kevin himself. But Kevin is his own man. He’ll do what he wants to do.”
The NBA has yet to lay out a plan for the resumption of play, but there has been talk that there could be a three-week training camp period before finishing the season. There is still another month’s worth of games remaining in the regular season, but the NBA could opt to condense that and jump into the playoffs sooner. While Williams said Durant has been working out and is feeling great, he questions if playing this season would be worth the risk.
“It’s about how long will they train? How long will he play five-on-five with physical contact?” Williams said. “There’s a lot of questions that need to be answered. Someone can have great individual workouts and pickup games but until you play in full live-game situation with teammates, I don’t know the answer.”
The Nets are currently in seventh place in the Eastern Conference, but Kyrie Irving is not expected to play again this season because of a shoulder injury. Although Nets GM Sean Marks recently changed his tune a bit when discussing Durant, it still seems highly unlikely that the two-time NBA Finals MVP will play this season.
