994. Since the start of the season in mid-October, Kevin Durant has played 994 minutes in 27 games played. It’s simple, no NBA player has spent so much time on the court this year. Is it reasonable knowing that KD is 34 years old and has a real history of injuries behind him?
Watching Kevin Durant play basketball is something you will never tire of. So seeing KD spend regarding 40 minutes on the field night following night, personally it doesn’t bother us more than that, especially since the Slim Reaper has missed a lot of games since his Achilles tendon rupture a little bit ago. more than three years (only 117 games played in the regular season since 2019). Well yes, we had missed the bugger.
But for Nets coach Jacque Vaughn, his superstar’s high playing time is bound to be a talking point. Even more than that. According to Steve Nash’s successor, lowering Durant’s minutes is essential (via CUT).
“It’s priority number 1. The minutes are piling up, we always try to manage it intelligently in the short and long term.”
“The minutes are adding up”
The Nets are looking for chances to rest Kevin Durant https://t.co/5CXPABYahg pic.twitter.com/fliz9D7Uce
— SNY (@SNYtv) December 10, 2022
Reduce Durant’s playing time, and give him occasional rest days like tonight for the back-to-back at Indiana, which KD might miss.
That’s the plan for the Nets, but at the same time the latter needed every minute of their superstar to keep their heads above water at the start of the season, between injuries (hello Ben Simmons), controversy (hello Kyrie Irving), change of coach (hello Steve Nash) etc. We recall that under the impetus of a Durant in MVP mode, Brooklyn now has a barely positive record of 15 wins – 12 losses thanks to the current good dynamics (six wins in seven games at home). It’s a scenario reminiscent of last year, where Durant had already been in high demand while Kyrie was banned from the field and James Harden struggled to find his rhythm. The rest, we know it: a knee injury in mid-January, the Nets completely collapsing in the standings without Easy Money, and KD ending the season on the kneecaps with a terrible series of Playoffs once morest the Celtics. Typically the kind of scenario you don’t want to replicate in Brooklyn.
There is the whole problem on the side of BK: Jacque Vaughn knows that he must reduce Kevin Durant’s playing time to avoid wearing him out too much and thus reduce the risk of injury, but at the same time the Nets remain hyper-dependent on KD’s performance.
Can that change with the return of Simmons (he replayed yesterday once morest the Hawks), a Kyrie Irving who is gaining momentum following his absence for suspension and a TJ Warren back on the court? If the Nets coach would like to answer yes to this question, for the moment he cannot. The good news for Vaughn is that Brooklyn’s schedule is going to offer Durant some respite: After tonight’s back-to-back in Indiana, Brooklyn will play Monday in Washington – KD’s hometown – and then only Friday in Toronto, enough to recharge the batteries a little.
It seems essential.
