It won't be long now. While Steve Nash, Kevin Durant, James Harden and the Brooklyn Nets have lost their first-place standing, they'll be getting a turbo boost to the rotation soon.

DeMar DeRozan now has the Chicago Bulls atop the Eastern Conference leaderboard, as both the Nets and Bulls are 23-10. However, Brooklyn something coming the Bulls do not: they're gearing up for three-time All-NBA, seven-time All-Star Kyrie Irving's much anticipated return.

Timely Boost For The Nets

Now getting healthier as many teams are losing bodies to health and safety protocols, Brooklyn is ramping up while the opposition is thinning out.

Kevin Durant and James Harden are both back from protocols. Harden recorded his third consecutive 30-point game in a loss to the Philadelphia 76ers. Mostly asymptomatic while in isolation, Harden looked like the break helped him find fresh legs. KD, meanwhile, had 33 points in his first game back on Friday.

Irving also tested positive for COVID-19 upon returning to the team. He spent time in protocols himself, but once he was cleared, he finally returned to practice for the first time this season.

And word from the team is that he looked… well, a lot like himself.

Harden was also asked how Irving looked in practice.

“Like Kyrie. Elite,” The Beard said while laughing. “Yeah, I mean same Kyrie, we just happy to have him back. Now we gotta get him on the court and get this thing going.”

Kyrie Irving In Nets' ‘Stay Ready' Group

Irving has been playing with what head coach Steve Nash refers to as the “stay ready” group. But that's not the same as real NBA action with All-Star opponents, talented role players, hardship exception dudes fighting for careers and referees.

“He looks great, considering,” Nash said ahead of the team's New Year's Day home game versus the Los Angeles Clippers. “You know he was in isolation for however many days, 10 plus days…so for him to come out of that and to look as good as he has playing with the ‘stay ready”‘ group and getting his rhythm back has been exciting.”

The team recently defeated this Clippers squad that is missing Kawhi Leonard (ACL) and Paul George (welbow) 124-108. Harden led the team at the time with 39 points, 15 assists and eight rebounds.

“But I don't want it to diminish the transition,” continued Nash. “It's still different from playing informal kind of stay-ready group games rather than playing NBA games with schemes and sets, and adapting to everything, you know refereeing, opposition, different opposition, all that stuff. So we have to give him time to really get his feet under him, but a far as how he looks, he looks very very, gifted.”

So what does his actual return depend on, is it a matter of Irving coming to them and telling them ‘I'm ready?'

“I think he's on his way, it's getting close. We just gotta make sure that we don't make a hasty decision, but it's coming,” Nash added.

Of the 22 games Kyrie Irving can appear away from Barclays in 2022, the first would be the January 5th match versus the Indiana Pacers. If he's still with the stay ready group by then, maybe they'd look to buy him one more week. The Nets face the first place Bulls on Jan.uary 12th.

But it sounds like it won't be long now. Kevin Durant and James Harden were already a handful for teams. Their Big 3 will finally be on the court together soon, and it doesn't sound like Irving is terribly rusty.