Kevin Durant and the other three Nets players who tested positive for COVID-19 are now symptom-free, general manager Sean Marks said on a conference call Wednesday.
Marks also said that Brooklyn’s entire traveling party and staff are healthy, to his knowledge.
“This is a time that completely transcends basketball,” he said.
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On the half-hour conference call with local reporters, Marks touched on a variety of topics, including how the club and its players are coping amidst the pandemic, how the injury rehab for Durant and Kyrie Irving has been affected, and how the coaching search and draft preparation have been affected. He also briefly discussed free agency and the salary cap.
• Marks said he has been in constant contact with players and said that most of Brooklyn’s roster has remained in the New York area while the city has been on pause. Nets guard Spencer Dinwiddie was one of the few players who left the city and is currently camped out in San Antonio, Texas.
The Nets have three European players on their roster in Timothe Luwawu-Cabarrot (France), Rodions Kurucs (Latvia) and Dzanan Musa (Bosnia) who can’t go home because of travel bans imposed. Marks said he had a conference call with all three players on Tuesday night to check in on them and understands the sensitivity of their situations.
“They are coping, and their families are coping with this,” Marks said. “But that’s really difficult. Their families are completely separated. They’re not in the same time zone, they’re in completely different countries, and obviously, there is a travel ban in place. So, these guys cannot go home. So, it doesn’t make sense for anybody to even try and leave right now. The best thing we can do right now is to stay here and support them and support their families.”
• Asked if there’s a chance Irving (shoulder surgery) or Durant (Achilles) could play if the season resumed in the summer, Marks said all injury-related issues are now blurry because he hasn’t seen the players in person in weeks. He said it might take a month to get a better idea of where things stand.
“I think something we have to think about is our facilities are closed, and just by getting time off, does that let your body heal, and so forth. There are several of our players that need our facilities, that need game reps, that need to be playing,” Marks said. “You can take the other side of this and say this hiatus has shifted rehabilitation back and it’s slowed that. I think there’s going to be a lot of questions that need answering as far as what does the return to play look like. So, a lot of unknown.”
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Marks praised the Nets performance staff, which sent each player on the roster a stationary bike to stay in shape, and has helped players coordinate their daily workouts, meals and other needs.
“It hasn’t gone unnoticed by our players,” Marks said.
• Marks said that he hasn’t reached out to any potential head coaching candidates because it wouldn’t be fair to interim coach Jacque Vaughn and his staff. The Nets were 2-0 under Vaughn when the season was suspended in early March, and Marks had said after the team parted ways with Kenny Atkinson that he would wait until the end of the season to start looking for a new coach.
Marks added on Wednesday that it will be a team effort to hire a new coach, and he plans to seek the opinions of Irving, Durant and other members of the organization when the time comes.
“I think that’s the approach we’ve taken with everything,” Marks said. “From four years ago, whether it was free agency or even in the draft, we had our own players come and watch draft workouts. I love getting their opinions, I love seeing what they see.
“So I think in everything, we would certainly use the expertise and the experience from several of our players and take that collaborative approach. Ultimately, I’m not going to put that decision on any one, two, four or five players. It’s going to come down to myself, the front office and our ownership, but it’ll be a collaborative approach.”
• While the NBA continues to explore possible ways to resume and finish the season, Marks reserved comment on possible scenarios, including one in which the league convenes every team in one city, possibly Las Vegas, to do it. Marks also refrained from voicing his opinion on if the season even resumes. He said he trusts whatever decision commissioner Adam Silver will come to and will let it play out before commenting. He also said he doesn’t expect the Nets to get re-tested before resuming the season.
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When asked if the Barclays Center had been considered as a temporary hospital in the city, Marks said it wasn’t his question to answer.
• After the NBA suspended the season, Marks told his front office staffers to take some time away from work to focus on their families before regrouping. Marks said he and his team are preparing for every scenario possible with regards to the draft, free agency and any possible return to the season.
The Nets dealt their 2020 first-round pick to Atlanta to acquire Taurean Prince last year. They would retain it, however, if they miss the playoffs, although that doesn’t seem likely since Brooklyn sits in seventh in the Eastern Conference standings. The Nets also hold the Sixers’ first-round pick.
Marks said the main challenge in preparing for the draft is simply having fewer chances to scout and meet with prospects, with most team and agent-coordinated workouts likely getting shelved. Marks said he’s leaning on the intel his staff has gathered on each player over the last two years and added that it’s a great challenge to find new ways to evaluate players.
• On the free agency front, Nets guard Joe Harris will enter the open market this summer, while reserves such as Garrett Temple and Theo Pinson both have team-options. Center Jarrett Allen is also eligible for a contract extension. Marks and owner Joe Tsai have both said they have no problem paying in the luxury tax the next few seasons as the Nets try to contend for a title, but the league’s current hiatus is going to have massive ramifications for the salary cap.
Marks said trying to prepare for what the financial picture could look like isn’t really possible right now because of the ever-changing nature.
“All 30 teams are going to be in the same boat here,” Marks said. “Nobody is going to leg up on anybody else.”
(Photo: Matteo Marchi / Getty Images)