NEW YORK — Nets star Kyrie Irving returned from his personal leave and practiced with his team on Tuesday for the first time since Jan. 6. While Nets head coach Steve Nash refrained from making any permanent proclamations, he said he thinks and expects the star point guard will play in Wednesday’s game against the Cleveland Cavaliers, Irving’s former team.
Neither Nash nor Irving addressed the nature of the personal reasons that kept the guard off the floor for each of the Nets’ past six games. He also missed two games due to violating the league’s coronavirus health and safety protocol by attending a family birthday party without wearing a mask. He forfeited more than $800,000 in game checks for missing those two games plus an additional $50,000 fine for violating league policy.
“I’m going to keep that in-house,” Nash said of Irving’s personal reasons. “It was great to have Kyrie back in the building and with the group. We’ve missed him. I’m excited to get him back out there on the floor.”
Irving returns to a team that looks drastically different than it did the last time he played.
The Nets traded seven years worth of draft assets, along with Caris LeVert, Jarrett Allen, Taurean Prince and Rodions Kurucs, to pry former league MVP James Harden from the Houston Rockets. Brooklyn is now home to the league’s premier Big 3 of Irving, Harden and superstar forward Kevin Durant.
Irving noted it was difficult parting with some of the players involved in the trade, but he is excited to get to work with his new teammates.
“It’s just the nature of the business, we’re all brothers still so we’re just moving on into the next phase of just developing as a team and building some camaraderie and having fun,” Irving said. “It’s just really exciting, just to be able to play with great players that have just been here in the league for awhile, have been through ups and downs, the peaks and valleys. So you know James is aligned with us in terms of just experience and adding that to our locker room is going to be great for us.”
Nash said the Nets did not have an active practice but spent time walking through concepts and sets they hope to catch Harden up on.
“We were able to script and rehearse. It’s hard to build chemistry without playing, and we’re not playing in practice,” Nash said. “So, the chemistry is going to be formed on the floor during games. It’s going to take some time. But we’re excited about the possibilities, and it was great to be out on the floor and to have Kai back in the building.”
The Nets coach doesn’t think Irving will have too much of a challenge fitting alongside Harden and Durant, either, though he admitted it’s a learning process that will take time over the course of the season.
“Kai is such a talented basketball player. I think he can adapt to multiple situations and roles,” Nash said. “He’ll be with the ball, he’ll be without the ball, and I think he’s terrific in both capacities. He’s also very skillful, intelligent and creative. He’ll, I think, adapt to any possibility. So though that takes time — and I don’t want to discredit that that is change, and that is newness, and those things do take time — he’s more than capable of flourishing in multiple roles.”
