On December 19, Beijing time, the Nets' home battle against the Magic turned into a fierce competition. The away Magic had seven players unable to play due to injury and another five triggering health and safety agreements. The Nets didn't fare much better, with 12 players also watching from the sidelines, forcing Veteran Patty Mills, who had planned to take a break, to change his plans and get on the pitch.
The Nets, which have a super big three, have also made a lot of gains in this summer's player market, in addition to the addition of veteran Paul Millsap and Patty Mills, LaMarcus Aldridge, who announced his retirement due to heart problems after playing only 5 games last season, has also returned to the team, making the team more powerful and becoming the biggest favorite of the championship.
What people did not expect is that since the beginning of the season, the Nets' set of "big team" conditions have been frequently out, and now they have fallen to the point of relying on short-term contract players to support the scene. Is the net's tragic situation caused by natural disasters or man-made disasters?
Who dares to be worse than me?
The Nets have caused today's tragic situation due to the impact of the epidemic, and the beginning of this tragedy is also because of the epidemic.
The COVID-19 pandemic began to invade the NBA in March 2020, and the league has been struggling for two seasons and making countless efforts before it seems to be gradually getting back on track. Before the start of the new season, the league's epidemic prevention nerves have relaxed, and it has made it clear that it will not force players to be vaccinated, but a few teams such as the Knicks, Nets, and Warriors still have to cooperate with local requirements to be vaccinated to participate in home games.
It was in this situation that Irving once again showed his maverick side, even if it was clear that this would affect the Nets' championship plan, his own contract extension problem, still refused to be vaccinated. So the Nets, after internal discussions, decided to let him leave the team temporarily.
The Nets made this decision on the one hand, not because one person's entry and exit (Irving can still play away games in theory) to affect the chemistry and continuity of the team, and on the other hand, they believed that under the leadership of Durant and Harden, they could still remain competitive enough.
The Nets may not have thought that due to factors such as the new rules and their own state, Harden is no longer the "Dengge" who led the team to continuously attack the city with the MVP level performance when Europe and Du took turns to truce last season. So far, Harden has averaged only 20.8 points per game this season, shooting 40.4% from the field, and averaging 5 turnovers per game.
With Irving sidelined, Harden sluggish, and the Nets moving from Big 3 to Big 1.5, Durant had to carry the entire team, and while his personal performance was quite outstanding, his average playing time per game set a personal record in eight years, raising growing concerns about his health.
Nets coach Steve Nash said just before the last game against the 76ers, "I don't know if we can continue to rely on him like this, it doesn't feel right anyway." ”
Shortly after Nash said this, Durant had a chance to rest, but it was probably not the way the Nets wanted: In the early hours of this morning, the Nets announced that Durant triggered a health and safety agreement, and would miss today's game with the Magic, and he was also on the quarantine list, as well as Irving, who had just been allowed to return to the team for the away game.
Durant and Irving are the eighth and ninth Nets players to trigger a health and safety agreement in the past few days, and then, rookie Thorpe has joined them, the Nets are 10 people quarantined, plus the injured Joe Harris and Clarkston, the team's 20-man roster, only 8 people can play, just enough to meet the league's required minimum number of people to play.
Among the 8 players, including 3 rookies (Cameron Thomas, Kessler Edwards, David Duke), and 3 are the 10-day firefighters who have just taken advantage of the difficult exception (Langston Galloway, James Ennis, Shaquille Harrison), and only Mills and Griffin, two veterans, are players who are originally in the team's regular rotation plan.
How can such a situation be a tragic word?
It is a natural disaster, but there is also a man-made disaster
The "tragedy" of the Nets, first of all, is a natural disaster, the new crown epidemic swept the world, many people's work and life have been affected, and the NBA, recently has become the hardest hit area of the epidemic.
In fact, not only the Nets, but now many teams in the NBA are plagued by the new crown epidemic, and many players have triggered health and safety protocols to create problems for platooning.
Among them, the Bulls have been forced to postpone two games this week because a number of players, including DeRozan and LaVine, triggered health and safety agreements; the Hornets have been quarantined at the same time for the previous five people, and the core players such as Lamelo Ball and Rozier have just returned from the ban; another popular team, the Lakers, also have a number of players including Howard, Horton Tucker, Munch, Reeves, Bradley and other players in the quarantine list.
According to the current situation, in the year-end war a few days later, the Lakers' game against the Nets will most likely become a chicken rib game of "rookie chickens pecking at each other" due to the impact of the epidemic. This is probably something that the league did not expect when it set the schedule before the start of the season.
As of Friday local time, a total of 84 players have triggered health and safety agreements this season, including 68 in December alone. In the past four days, three days of new quarantine players have reached double digits, and Friday hit a new single-day high of 16. That doesn't include today's data.
But the Nets' series of tragedies are also related to their own mismanagement. In the past few years, the Nets management, represented by general manager Sean Max, has performed well in the player market, but in the internal management of the team, it has been constantly slotting.
Irving joined the Nets with Durant in the summer of 2019, bringing the team the hope of winning the championship, but also destroying the team's original chemistry, making the Nets a typical "superstar team".
Former Nets coach Kenny Atkinson was an important contributor to the team's rapid rebuilding out of the trough, but in the first season after Durant and Irving joined, he was halfway down.
At the time, Atkinson led the young Nets to remain in the top eight in the East despite the long absence of two superstars due to injury, and eventually reached the playoffs, with impeccable work performance. Some reports show that the reason why Atkinson left class was because he did not handle the relationship with Irving and Durant, and it was an "important crime" not to let Jordan Jr., a friend of the two superstars, play first. But looking back, was there a problem with Atkinson's refusal to reuse Jordan Jr. in the first place? The answer is clear.
Last season was Irving's first "basically healthy" season with the Nets, and in the 18 games he missed, it wasn't all about injuries. In January this year, Irving missed seven consecutive games for personal reasons, during which time he was also photographed violating epidemic prevention regulations and attending family gatherings without wearing a mask.
Since Irving's private departure happened just before and after The Harden deal, it naturally led to a lot of speculation. As for what he was thinking at the time, it is still a mystery. But Max's reaction was interesting, when he commented on the matter in an interview:
"We'll let Carey solve this problem in his own way." 'We're not going to shy away from it, but there's no doubt that the team hasn't been disappointed with any of the players.' "He's part of our big family and we're going to continue to build the team around the people here."
Inside and outside the words, the word "connivance" is revealed everywhere.
At the start of the season, when Irving was unable to play in an away game because he refused to be vaccinated, the Nets management was tough against it, simply stripping him of the home game. But now, they have reneged on their foreword and agreed that Irving would only play away.
Max's explanation for this is that the environment is changing, and the decision must of course change with it. It was also said that this was done to reduce the load on existing players.
But the Nets agreed that Irving's return to the team was first, and the large-scale outbreak of the epidemic in the team was behind. In fact, before playing the Magic today, the Nets ranked first in the East with 21 wins and 8 losses, 3 wins ahead of the second place, and their problem was whether they were strong or not, and the problem of insufficient competitiveness in the playoffs was not a problem in front of them, not the current record problem.
And Owen's part-time return simply cannot solve the problem at all. Therefore, the Nets have once again shown a confusion in their management thinking in dealing with Irving, which is not a natural disaster, but a pure man-made disaster.
Will the tragedy continue?
The Nets disqualified Mills from the rotation, which barely made the league's 8-man roster, but if something happens in the next few days, they may have to apply for a game extension.
In fact, although the Bulls have previously suffered from quarantine, they can barely get 8 people to play, and the league agreed to postpone their two games with the Pistons and Raptors to avoid the continued spread of the epidemic. And now, the Nets have just made up 8 people with a difficult exception to sign three people in a row.
Judging by the Nets' current situation, it would not be surprising if positive test results continue to appear in the coming days. In addition, the reduction of rotation means that the burden on healthy players at present increases, and it will also increase the risk of injury to a certain extent, and these are the results of the current Nets, which cannot afford.
If the Nets are forced to postpone future games, these games will be forced to be installed in the second half of the season schedule, and the direct result is that the schedule density increases and the physical fitness of the players is tested.
Durant's strong comeback after a ruptured Achilles tendon in the 2019 Finals is amazing, but his health has always been a major concern in the Minds of the Nets. Because of all the difficulties, KD, who has begun to lead the team alone, may increase the burden in the second half of the season, will this bring new injuries?
Hopefully not.