Kings forward Harrison Barnes was already on the floor for practice Sunday just two days after joining the team in Florida.
Coach Luke Walton was encouraged by what he saw, saying Barnes might even be able to play when the Kings scrimmage the Los Angeles Clippers on Monday at Walt Disney World Resort. Walton will have difficult rotation decisions to make now that Barnes is in the NBA bubble, but he will welcome that challenge after illness and injuries created weeks of roster uncertainty.
During a Zoom call with reporters following Sunday's practice, Walton described what he was seeing from Barnes and talked about what that might mean for DaQuan Jeffries, an undrafted rookie who impressed in the first two scrimmages.
"Today was a non-contact day for us ... but we have (Barnes) playing some 3-on-3, 4-on-4 right now since practice has officially kind of ended," Walton said. "He looks good. We'll see how he feels tomorrow and if he feels well we'll try to get him out there a little bit in that Clipper game."
Walton also said center Richaun Holmes will play Monday. Holmes wasn't sick or injured, but he has been limited to practice since last week when he completed his mandatory 10-day quarantine for breaking bubble protocol.
Barnes tested positive for COVID-19 over the Fourth of July weekend. Barnes said he was "primarily asymptomatic," but it took nearly three weeks for him to test negative on two consecutive tests, as required under NBA guidelines. Kings center Alex Len is still working on conditioning after developing symptoms during his 24-day battle with the coronavirus, but Walton said Barnes is showing no adverse effects.
"He never got any symptoms, so I think he's probably doing as well as you can when you're in quarantine for a long time," Walton said. "He looks good. He passes the eye test. He's moving around and he feels confident, and he wants to play, so that's all good news."
Barnes is the only player who has started all 64 games for the Kings this season. Walton starts him at small forward, but Barnes has logged 54% of his minutes at power forward, according to Basketball Reference.
