Amazing scene on the NBA floor of the Brooklyn Nets: star player Kevin Durant was forced, Friday, February 5, to leave the field in the middle of a game against the Toronto Raptors, for reasons related to the Covid-19 protocol.
The imbroglio is all the more complex as the NBA has changed its mind several times in the evening. The North American Basketball League, which has implemented a protocol implying that a player with a potential contact case, – therefore the subject of a traceability investigation -, remains away from the team, has decided Just minutes from kick-off that Durant couldn’t start this game.
Then a few moments later he was cleared to play and came on at the end of the first quarter. According to ESPN, citing sources within the Nets, the winger had been in contact with a person believed to be exposed to Covid-19, but after that person passed additional tests it was concluded that Durant could play.
Coup de theater, at 3e quarter-time, the latter was forced to leave the floor of the Barclays Center. He learned this decision, stunned, while he was sitting on a chair not far from his team’s bench and returned to the locker room, angrily throwing a bottle of water on the ground.
The moment Kevin Durant learns he has to leave the field for Covid protocol … … after being announced … https://t.co/yo44SK3CQo
” Free me “
The NBA then explained the context that led it to make these contrary decisions. According to its spokesperson, Tim Frank, “Durant, who has tested negative three times in the past twenty-four hours, including two on Friday, interacted in the afternoon with a person who received an inconclusive test result shortly before the game.”.
“Durant was therefore initially kept on the sidelines, while the result of that test was being reviewed, because according to league health and safety protocols, we don’t require a player to be quarantined before a close contact has a confirmed positive test “, added Tim Frank.
Which does not explain why Durant was nevertheless allowed to play because during the match “The result of the test taken by the person with whom Durant interacted came back positive (…) Out of excess of caution, Durant did not finish the meeting”Frank concluded, adding that the league is now looking to determine how close the Brooklyn player has been with the person in question.
If coach Steve Nash did not hide his caution in the face of the situation, lamenting that “It’s hard to lose Kevin Durant twice in the same match”, the latter was not angry on social networks, asking for his “Release” on Twitter with the message “Free me”.
Free me
“KD” contracted Covid last year, while in rehabilitation after a ruptured Achilles tendon. He returned to the courts, after 18 months of absence at the end of December, making a remarkable start to the season, with an average of 30.8 points per game. At the beginning of January, he had nevertheless already had to observe a first quarantine of ten days, or three missed matches, to have already been in contact with a person who contracted the virus.
Before suffering this funny exclusion, Durant had scored 8 points in 19 minutes of play. Insufficient to prevent the defeat of his team 123 to 117, in this regular season meeting. Definitely a bad night in Brooklyn.
