Nets GM ‘disappointed’ Kyrie Irving was away from team

Brooklyn Nets general manager Sean Marks admitted that Kyrie Irving’s absence has left the team “disappointed.”

Irving has been away from the team since last week and has missed five games. Marks spoke with reporters on Thursday to announce the James Harden trade, and that’s when he talked about Irving.

“Without a doubt, I’m not going to shy away from it, without a doubt the organization is disappointed with not having any one of our players, in this particular case Kyrie, not amongst us, not in the trenches with us and so forth,” Marks said. “And so I don’t want to speculate and say why he’s out and so forth. I’ve had conversations with him and I’ll continue to have conversations and I look forward to him being back in the gym and he will address this and we’ll sit down with him.”

Irving was fined $50,000 by the NBA for violating COVID-19 protocol and will not be paid for two games he missed while serving part of his 5-day quarantine.

Irving is expected to play in the team’s game against the Magic on Saturday. But as we know with Irving, nothing should be taken for granted.