Before the NBA went on its hiatus due to the novel coronavirus outbreak, Kevin Durant had made quite a bit of progress with the rehab of his right Achilles. A video of him playing 3-on-3 with his Brooklyn Nets teammates even leaked out.
That clip and those which preceded gave Nets fans reason to have hope when looking toward 2020-21 — with Durant having ruled himself out completely for 2019-20, again, before the league’s hiatus.
Still, it’s unclear how Durant will look when he gets back to game action.
Former Nets assistant coach turned analyst Sam Mitchell doesn’t care if Durant is the same guy he was before the injury, the Nets will be title contenders in his eyes. With that being the case, Mitchell thinks Brooklyn has to cater to Durant if the franchise expects to live up to the hype, as the retired small forward and ex-Raptors head coach expressed on Sirius XM NBA Radio on Sunday:
You invested all this energy, time, money and a whole season this year to get Kevin Durant. Why would you not try to put everything around him that he feels like he needs to be in the right mindset to compete for a championship? Why would you not do [that]? To me, that’s stupid. … That’s like having a guy who can run 100 meters in a world-record time and putting a big hole in front of him. Why would you do that? It makes no sense. The hardest teams to coach are the teams with championship aspirations; that when people say, ‘That team should win it,” that’s hard. And when Kevin Durant comes back, whether he’s the old Kevin Durant, the new Kevin Durant or whatever, they’re going to be expected to compete for a championship.
🔊 Regardless of what the Nets do with their Head Coach position, @SamMitchellNBA believes the Nets need to prioritize Kevin Durant's needs this summer #WEGOHARD pic.twitter.com/O9L6HvPBbQ
— SiriusXM NBA Radio (@SiriusXMNBA) April 26, 2020
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