COVID threatens to touch the most sacred to the NBA, your most special date. Christmas Day, for money raised the most important of the year, reels with each positive that is added to the list. At the moment they are more than 50 players who are currently in the protocols (more than 10% of the league) and one of the last to join is not just anybody.
Is about Kevin Durant, star of the Nets and one of the great candidates for MVP. The team of Brooklyn is one of those who plays at Christmas and his match, by name, was the highlight of the day: Lakers-Nets in Los Angeles. Apart from the foreseeable absence of Anthony Davis (injured knee last night) and Kyrie Irving’s, that although he is going to play again You can’t do it without getting vaccinated in some cities like Los Angeles by sanitation regulations, adding Durant to the list would leave the duel more than decaffeinated. One more blow for a league in which this whole situation of the virus is getting out of hand.
Yesterday unveiled new rules that the NBA is negotiating with the NBPA (the Players Association) to increase control and prevention. Between them more tests and use of a mask in more places. But the idea is that they begin to apply from December 26. an increase in test would undoubtedly result in an increase in positives, something the league doesn’t want to hear about before the 25th. But Omicron doesn’t understand dates and now It has infected more than 30 players in the last four days alone. If we continue at this rate, there will not be many players available on Christmas Day. Especially considering that already There are less than ten days left for that date, the deadline that positives have to return to the track, unless they give two negatives before.
For the Nets it is also a disgrace. Have been one of the teams hit hardest by this new wave and even in the case of Durant they accumulated seven casualties, including such illustrious names as Harden, Griffin or Aldridge. But they stayed at the top of the Eastern Conference thanks to the best player on the roster, a Kevin Durant who was playing like an alien these last days. In the last eleven games he played more than 37 minutes in all, in five of them he was above 40 and in two he reached 45 minutes. In the penultimate against Toronto he had to play 48 minutes with extension included. His team’s record in this season is 8 wins and 3 losses with the forward averaging 31.4 points, 7.9 rebounds, 7.2 assists and 1.4 blocks per game. What would have happened without him on the team? We have five games, starting tonight with the Magic, to check.
