Kevin Durant will miss his fourth straight game on Sunday due to a left hamstring strain, according to Malika Andrews of ESPN. Durant, who missed all of last season while rehabbing a ruptured Achilles, did strengthening exercises on Saturday. “I don’t think this is a long-term thing,” Nets coach Steve Nash said. “But there is elements of maybe it being, taking a few more days than we thought or just being cautious.”
We have more on the Nets:
- Andre Roberson is relieved to get another NBA opportunity, as he told Tom Dowd of BrooklynNets.com. The former Thunder wing signed with the club on Tuesday. “I wasn’t ready to give up on my dream,” Roberson said. “I knew at some point, a door, an opportunity would open, whether it be this season or next season, so I was just gonna stay in shape as best I can. … I had some traction with other teams, but nothing really stuck, but the Nets called.”
- Nash is happy to see reserves like Timothe Luwawu-Cabarrot, Landry Shamet and Tyler Johnson make a greater impact, Greg Joyce of the New York Post writes. “They’ve all really played well. It makes our depth look a lot better,” Nash said. “The second unit’s been producing, holding or extending leads.”
- Joe Harris, who re-signed on a four-year, $75MM contract over the offseason, is benefiting from being surrounding by stars, Joyce notes in another piece. Harris is taking more 3-pointers than he ever (6.6 per game) and is making a league-best 50.7%. Harris has knocked down 43 3-pointers in the last 11 games.
You’d have to be pretty concerned facing the Nets with everyone healthy in a 7 game series. These guys make scoring look easy & the bench is scoring easily too.
Harris looks great
When you get looks. A shooter can make it look so easy. I agree with Rocket Homer. Their offense can be dominant. But they gotta make stops if they want to go to Finals and win.
That’s true, but their defense is in the bottom 5 of the NBA.
3 teams need to get Zach Lavine to beat Nets in playoffs
Celtics
Heat
76ers
IMO
At age 25, Zach LaVine is top 10 player already
He is nicest guy with a Great contract
Use Warriors as a third team trade partner
At this point, any above-average player fits in the celtics bench
I wonder whether or not these guys off the bench will see minutes when Kevin Durant returns, probably at home on Tuesday versus the Kings. Seems like Nash wants to continue using Jeff Green as the starting Center, so Joe Harris gets to start with the Big3. What the bench rotation?
Kyrie/ Brown
Harden/ Shamet
Joe/ TLC
KD/ Roberson
Green/ Jordan
Looks messy. Hopefully, Sean Marks gets Nash the best pieces to make this a championship rotation
Bulls tried to give Zach LaVine $76 million extension a few months ago
He is better than Booker and Simmons
LaVine is worth Booker contract $158 million
I’m not sure where you get your sources from. I haven’t heard or read about a $76M extension offer when his ORIGINAL RFA deal was 4/80. Are you making up stuff as you go along now?
As for being better than Simmons and Booker? Yeah, he’s better offensively but as a leader and intangibles he’s particularly not that good. Not sure if you value those things when determining a player’s worth because I do.
I’ve said it BEFORE, any team that wants Lavine must give up atleast TWO unprotected first round picks in non consecutive years because he is still only making $19M next year. We’re not just going to hand him over for a bag of Cheetos spicy limon and a membership to Sam’s Club.
Harris is an accelerant to the stars, and they benefit from his presence as an elite floor spacer.
The Nets’ bench is getting right. The roster depth was always there, but some guys got off to slow starts and fell from the rotation quickly.
From a defensive standpoint, they really just need to address the C position. Starting C. The rest of the rotation players are who they are. The perimeter stars will defend better when it matters, and Harris is good defender; and they’re all playing when it matters regardless. If they could have found a way to get the Harden deal without including J. Allen, they would, IMO, be the favorites to win it all. As it is, they’ll need Claxton to get healthy (and make a jump) and/or mix and match – like they’ve tried, but with a guy from the outside.