NBA fans received terrible news over the holiday weekend. Kevin Durant suffered a sprained MCL in his left knee that will keep him sidelined for a minimum of four-to-six weeks, per ESPN’s Adrian Wojnarowski. Durant, with averages of 29.3 points, 7.4 rebounds and 5.8 assists, was in the midst of yet another NBA MVP campaign (+1000 at Tipico Sportsbook), leading the Nets to a top-2 seed out East (at the time of his injury).
The most recent knee ailment is the latest bump in the road in Brooklyn’s quest to win an NBA championship. After finally getting Kyrie Irving back in the mix, another core member is now missing from the Nets’ lineup.
Breaking: Kevin Durant has been diagnosed with a sprained MCL in his left knee, the Nets announced.
There's optimism within the organization that Durant will return after a four-to-six week rehab, sources tell @wojespn. pic.twitter.com/fR1ZHqwJtU
— SportsCenter (@SportsCenter) January 16, 2022
Technically, the Nets’ journey began in the summer of 2019, when they went into free agency with a lot of money to spend and came away from it with two superstar players in Kevin Durant and Kyrie Irving. But realistically, the immediate moves were more about the future than anything else as Durant spent the 2019-2020 season recovering from a torn Achilles.
So, fast-forward to the 2020-2021 season and those championship expectations quadruple with the trade for James Harden. The Nets form a Big 3 to compete for a title, but that trio hardly plays together during the regular season — largely due to injuries. They enter the playoffs healthy where the Big 3, and Nets in general, look fantastic in the opening round. However, injuries to Harden and Irving just one round later end up derailing Brooklyn’s championship hopes.
And now, here we are. It’s 2022 and the Nets have similar issues. Kyrie Irving missed nearly the entire first half of the season as the Nets due to his COVID-19 vaccine status. The organization changed its stance on that decision sometime in December and Irving made his way back to the court in early January as a road-game-only player.
Everything seemed fine momentarily. The Nets even went on the road and thoroughly outclassed the conference-leading Chicago Bulls by more than 20 points as the Big 3’s potential shined. But days later, KD injures his knee and now Brooklyn is back at square one. James Harden will have to take the lead most nights as he did in Houston, which is fine, right? Harden started the season incredibly slowly (by his standards) but his 26.8 points, 8.2 rebounds and 10.9 assists average over the last 15 games indicate he’s back in superstar form.
Smooth operator@JHarden13 #NBAAllStar pic.twitter.com/JXet0WueOy
— Brooklyn Nets (@BrooklynNets) January 17, 2022
The Nets find themselves in third place in the Eastern Conference and only two games away from the sixth seed. The next month of basketball sans Kevin Durant is going to be enormous. He will be back at some point, but will the runway be too short for the Nets to get things right and make good on their league-best +260 championship odds? Time will tell. But the clock continues to tick on Brooklyn’s Big 3 era.
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