The Brooklyn Nets made a major splash the summer of 2019 when they netted two perennial NBA All-Stars in free agency. Coming into this season, the Nets new they would be without one of them as he recovers from injury. Now they will be without both their big catches in free agency over the summer.
After visiting a shoulder specialist the past few days, Brooklyn Nets (25-28) six-time All-Star lead guard Kyrie Irving will have arthroscopic surgery on his right shoulder that will put him on the shelf the rest of this season, General Manager Sean Marks announced on Thursday night before their national televised contest at the Philadelphia 76ers (34-21) on TNT.
“Last few days visiting with a specialist and it’s been determined that he will have arthroscopic surgery on his shoulder and be out for the remainder of the season,” Marks said. “So, he’s obviously upset about this, and we are here to support him, support the process moving forward with him and the rehabilitation. He saw specialist including our own people at HSS, and it’s been a group consensus at this point in time in this juncture is the best course of action.”
Irving, who joined the Nets in free agency this past summer on a four-year, $141 million deal had played in just 20 games this season.
The West Orange, NJ native missed 26 games from Nov. 16, 2019-Jan. 12 because of an impingement in that right shoulder.
When Irving has been in the lineup this season, he has played at an All-Star level individually averaging a career-high 27.4 points, 6.4 assists and 5.2 rebounds on 47.8 percent from the field and 39.4 percent from three-point range.
“I’ve said this before: He was better than I ever thought, a better player than I thought, and I had tremendous respect for him in Cleveland and Boston,” head coach Kenny Atkinson said about his impression of Irving this season. “Faster than I thought, more skilled than I thought, a higher-level competitor than I thought, much more physical than I thought. I don’t think people give him enough credit for how physical he is on both ends; how active he is defensively and what an attacker he is. That bodes really well for the future.”
Coach Atkinson added about Irving, “I really love the player, and I feel like we have a really good relationship. So, we’re in a good place there. Obviously, you want more reps, more time with him, but we’ll have time with him in the offseason, too, to connect and, when he gets healthy, to work with him a little bit.”
Those great numbers by Irving when he has played have only equated to an 8-12 mark for the Nets when he has been in the lineup in those said 20 games. With out him overall, the Nets are 17-16, but they began 9-5 early on without Irving, but have gone 8-12 since.
This also makes now five straight seasons Irving has missed a bunch of games because of injury. He missed 29 games in total in his next to last season for the Cleveland Cavaliers in 2016-17. Irving missed 10 games in 2016-17 season with the Cavaliers as well as 10 games in the 2017-18 season in his first year with the Boston Celtics, which includes their 19 postseason games where they fell one game short of reaching the NBA Finals. In his last season with the C’s in 2018-19, Irving missed 15 games due to injury.
Irving did return from that right shoulder impingement in mid-January following a cortisone shot.
Irving had been on the shelf the last five games before the All-Star with a sprained right knee sustained late in the fourth quarter of the Nets 113-107 loss at the Washington Wizards on Feb. 1.
It was determined at that time with the other prized free agent signing of two-time Finals MVP Kevin Durant still out recovering from a ruptured right Achilles sustained Game 5 in the 2019 Finals in June 2019 that having Irving play through the pain in his shoulder was not worth risking his left long term and that having surgery now was the best course of action. Taking another cortisone shot was one option that was not on the table, according to Marks.
“I think we look at our players’ long-term health as the No. 1 priority,” Mark also said to reporters on Thursday. “Kyrie has been adamant like the rest of us that he would take one cortisone shot and see how it goes.”
“We are looking at the big picture here. We are not looking at the next 2-3 months. We are looking at the next 2-3 years.”
There was a possibility for Irving to have surgery on that right shoulder during his initial absence. The organization and Irving came to the conclusion that getting a cortisone shot and see how his shoulder responded was the best path in hopes of Irving avoiding having to go under the knife altogether.
“A cortisone shot lasts as long as it can,” Irving said to reporters on Jan. 4. “You either continue to get cortisone shots, which is obviously detrimental to your health and your muscles, or you go get arthroscopic surgery. For me, it’s just about being able to go back out there after the right amount rehab, the right amount of rest and recovery and see what we can do for the rest of the season and then reevaluate after a few months.”
Thursday’s announcement closes the door on a disappointing first season for Irving with the Nets, where he played well at times, which included scoring 55 points in his new team debut in the season-opening 127-126 overtime loss versus the Minnesota Timberwolves (16-37), but has seen him also spend a one-third of this season watching games in street clothes alongside Durant, who in an interview earlier in the week with “Bleacher Report,” ruled out returning to the game action this season, even with video surfacing of him working out on the court shooting and looking great, and healthy.
The Nets had hoped to figure out how to fit Irving alongside Spencer Dinwiddie, Caris LeVert and Joe Harris ahead of Durant’s return for the 2020-21 season will have to reach the playoffs for the second consecutive season.
Right now, the Nets occupy the No. 7 spot in the Eastern Conference, leading the No. 8 Seeded Orlando Magic (24-31) by two games, three games on the loss side; lead the No. 9 Seeded Washington Wizards (20-33) and the No. 10 Seeded Chicago Bulls (19-36) five and seven games respectably.
Dinwiddie has played exceptionally well as a starter in place of Irving, averaging 22.1 points and 7.2 assists in 38 starts this season.
“That’s part of what makes it tough with the injuries, right? They lead very well by example in terms of their work with their rehab. Their championship acumen. All their previous experiences. It just would obviously be nice if they were playing,” Dinwiddie said during All-Star weekend to “NBA: The Jump’s” Rachel Nichols, Scottie Pippen, and Tracy McGrady on Feb. 14.
LeVert who missed 24 games from Nov. 14,2019-Jan. 4 with a injured right thumb that required surgery has scored 20-plus in four of his last five games, including a career-high of 37 points on 12 for 18 from the field, including a career-best six made threes in seven tries.
Along with the Nets needing consistent play from Dinwiddie, LeVert, and Harris, they will also need for the likes of Taurean Prince, who the Nets signed to a contract extension before the start of this season, Jarrett Allen, Garrett Temple, and DeAndre Jordan to raise their level of play as well.
If there is one thing that has been made very clear is from the perspective of the players is, they have complete trust and respect for the leadership that Durant and Irving have shown as they have rehabbed their injuries to get back on the court.
“Well obviously he’s won a championship. So, he knows what it’s like to play at that very highest level and he instills that type of work ethic in the groups and that type of long-term focus which is big time,” Dinwiddie said. “And obviously one of the most dynamic scorers in the league. So, he just raises our talent level from where we previously were as a group, as a whole, right? Him and K.D., they’re two elite level talents.”
Coach Atkinson did admit that Irving being ruled out for the rest of this season will force the Nets to start from square one in building their roster once Irving and Durant return next season.
“I think that’s the big thing,” he said. “You wanted some time to work things out, work on our continuity and obviously work on the chemistry of the team and how we’re going to use him (Irving). That’s the disappointing part. We’re not going to have that opportunity. We’ll have to start fresh next season and figure it out quickly. But that is the disappointing part.”
Hearing that and what Coach Atkinson said earlier about Irving is a surprising consider the fact that after a 117-106 loss versus the 76ers on Jan. 15 on ESPN said that the Nets were lacking in the necessary pieces on their roster to be a championship caliber team.
“We have complimentary young guys as well who’ve done a great job for the last three years,” Irving said. “So, collectively I feel like we have great pieces, but obviously—it’s pretty glaring that we need one more piece or two pieces to compliment myself, K.D., D.J., G.T., Spence, Caris and, you know, we’ll see how it evolves.”
It is those kinds of statements, fair or unfair that really made his former teammates with the Boston Celtics turn their noses up at him a season ago. That said Coach Atkinson has confidence that this team is better with him and Durant on the court and that is something they hope can manifest itself next season, even though they will have to start that process from square one.
“I don’t know if there’s enough, especially when you throw Kevin into the mix,” he said. “I think it’s going to be a different structure, a different chemistry, different rotations.”
This season began for the Brooklyn Nets with major optimism with the additions of Kevin Durant and Kyrie Irving. Perennial All-Stars and NBA champions. The thoughts of having them and them bringing a title to New York were put on serious hold with Durant being declared out for the season as he recovers from a ruptured Achilles.
With the lead the Nets have over the aforementioned Magic and the Wizards, and Bulls for the No. 7 spot in the East, the Nets will make the playoffs, but it looks like they will have an early exit against either the current No. 2 Seeded Toronto Raptors (40-15) or the East leading Milwaukee Bucks (46-8).
The hope now is that Durant and Irving can come back for the 2020-21 season healthy and clear headed on helping turn the Nets into a serious title contender.
“Ky is one of the most positive people I’ve ever been around this whole process of me knowing him, meeting him since he signed. I’m sure it’s just another testament to his look” Price said about Irving to the New York Post earlier this week. “It’s time for other guys to step up and be the players that they feel they want to be along with trying to help us win as many games as possible down the stretch.”
They also have to decide if they want to re-sign Harris, who will be an unrestricted free agent this summer and if they want to give a contract extension to Allen.
GM Marks will have to make these decisions over this summer without having seen the full roster perform on the court for a full season.
“I’d be lying if I said I wish all our guys weren’t healthy for the whole time. It’s been kid of a roller-coaster year,” Marks said about this season for the Nets. “We’ve had Caris out as well. So, we’ve had multiple guys who’ve had these strange, unforeseen injuries.”
“But I have the utmost confidence in our performance staff, our doctors, all these specialists we’ve used as well. And also, the guys. The guys have fought hard with their rehab and obviously that’s led by Kevin over the course of the last four or five months while he’s been a Net.”
Information, statistics, and quotations are courtesy of 2/3/2020 3 p.m. edition “NBA: The Jump” on ESPN with Rachel Nichols, Jackie MacMullan, and Scottie Pippen; 2/14/2020 3 p.m. edition “NBA: The Jump,” on ESPN with Rachel Nichols, Michael Wilbon, Scottie Pippen, and Tracy McGrady; 2/20/2020 6 p.m. edition of NBATV’s “The Warmup,” presented by Ford with Stephanie Ready, Quentin Richardson, and Channing Frye; 2/20/2020 www.espn.com story, “Kyrie Irving To Have Season-Ending Shoulder Surgery; Nets ‘Looking at Big Picture,’” by Tim Bontemps; https://www.espn.com/nba/team/schedule/_/name/bkn; https://www.espn.com/nba/player/stats/gamelog/_/id/6442/kyrie-irving; and https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kyrie_Irving.
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