The NBA's decision to suspend the 2019-20 season for 30 days, and possibly longer has led to the speculation of Brooklyn Nets star Kevin Durant potentially returning for the playoff stretch — whenever that may be. Yet Durant's camp isn't so in line with that speculation.
“Honestly, not very realistic from my standpoint, and not even spoken about,” said Durant's manager Rich Kleiman, according to ESPN.
The league quickly pivoted from a two-week suspension to doubling that amid the coronavirus pandemic. Some owners like Dallas Mavericks' Mark Cuban put the potential expectancy of this halt to 60 days from the day following the suspension.
The 2019-20 NBA season regular season could take an extended hiatus, one that would go into mid-to-late June as a best-case scenario. Some others have realized the possibility that the rest of the regular season could be canceled, which would leave teams seeded as they were through Mar. 11.
That broached the potential for the seventh-seeded Nets to produce an upset against the second-seeded Toronto Raptors, should Durant return by then.
Kleiman turned that down, noting the team had already prepared for Durant to sit out the entire season.
“It feels like (Durant playing in the 2019-20 season) clearly was not something that was in the cards prior to all this,” said Kleiman. “And now, I think just like the rest of the world, it's hard to take anything more than day by day.
“I think that Kevin is going to figure out the space that he needs to be in to continue to rehab during this time. But even that is hard to answer at this point, with the new kind of rules that were put in place last night.”
Durant previously expressed willingness to take part in the 2020 Tokyo Olympics, which would have taken place within that same timeline.
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