The Brooklyn Nets will always remember being big winners in July 2019. All they’ve been doing this July is losing. Their roster has been as…
The Brooklyn Nets will always remember being big winners in July 2019.
All they’ve been doing this July is losing.
Their roster has been as depleted as any in the NBA, with a number of key rotation players not joining them for the restart in Florida.
A year after signing Kevin Durant and Kyrie Irving in one of the landmark moments in the franchise’s nomadic history, the Nets will trot out a roster that looks nothing like the one that was on pace for a postseason berth even without those two injured superstars.
“It will not look like previous basketball that you’ve seen for sure,” said Jacque Vaughn, who replaced Kenny Atkinson as coach just days before the season was suspended in March because of the coronavirus pandemic.
The Nets could still make the playoffs but might need contributions from players who aren’t well known even to their most passionate fans.
Durant and Irving won’t return from their surgeries until next season. Starters Spencer Dinwiddie and DeAndre Jordan both announced they had tested positive for the coronavirus and wouldn’t play, and fellow veterans Taurean Prince and Wilson Chandler also are staying home.
Even replacing players they lost proved problematic.
