\n<\/aside>\nOne year after landing James Harden, the Nets only have played 16 games with their assembled Big 3 \u2014 also including Kevin Durant and Kyrie Irving \u2014 in the lineup.<\/p>\n
They have won 13 of those contests, however, including an impressive blowout performance Wednesday night at Eastern Conference-leading Chicago.<\/p>\n
The question remains: How can the Nets maximize the amount of games the trio can play together, with the unvaccinated Irving still ineligible to play in home games and select road games due to local vaccine ordinances?<\/p>\n
Asked afterward if he believed the win over the Bulls showed the Nets at full strength are \u201ca title-worthy team,\u201d Irving replied he and his teammates \u201chave felt that way since Day 1,\u201d despite his absence for most of the first half of the season.<\/p>\n
\u201cEven when we started in training camp, just having the guys that we have on our team coupled with some great experience and then also young guys that are just really, really hungry to get out there on the floor,\u201d Irving said. \u201cAnd now that I\u2019ve been able to be on the road with the guys for a few days and just really get a good sense of where we are.<\/p>\nJames Harden, Kyrie Irving and Kevin Durant<\/figcaption>USA TODAY Sports; Getty Images<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\u201cI\u2019m definitely still playing catch up. I won\u2019t even put that past anything. It\u2019s just everybody\u2019s in midseason form, and I\u2019m just like, man, I\u2019ve missed training camp, I\u2019ve missed some valuable time just being able to get my feet wet out there. But with everything happening quick, my teammates the whole entire organization just made it easier, to just like just go out there and play. \u2026 So hopefully we can get used to this and have some more time playing together.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\t<\/aside>\nESPN\u2019s Adrian Wojnarowski reported Wednesday there is \u201creal optimism\u201d that the Nets eventually will get Irving back as a \u201cfull-time player\u201d at some point this season, possibly by incurring \u201cnominal fines\u201d for breaking New York City\u2019s existing rules.<\/p>\n
As The Post has reported, however, the NBA stated before the season that all teams must abide by any local mandates.<\/p>\n
Wojnarowski similarly walked back his original quotes Thursday on Twitter, writing, \u201cTo be clear on the hypothetical ability for a team to pay a fine for an unvaccinated player to play in a marketplace that local ordinances forbid,\u201d the NBA sent a memo to all teams in September that they \u201cmust follow local laws and players who don\u2019t comply won\u2019t be able to play.\u201d<\/p>\n
Meanwhile, the Nets were without Durant for their game Thursday night against the Thunder. They announced he and Patty Mills would be rested for the game at Barclays Center. Durant played 30 minutes Wednesday in the 26-point blowout win over the Bulls, while Harden logged 33 minutes and Irving scored nine points in 25 minutes.<\/p>\n
Irving also was asked after the game Wednesday how he has handled being away from his teammates for home games since rejoining them on the road last month.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s hard being away from the team at any point since this all started. It\u2019s difficult, so with that being said, there\u2019s still an adjustment and just a reality we have to face and we\u2019re doing our best, I\u2019m doing my best, and I\u2019m just happy we can do it as a cohesive organization,\u201d he said. \u201cFrom top to bottom, people have just been nothing but supportive of one another, guys are in and out of the lineup all year, so it\u2019s just a reality we have to face together and see where we end up later during the season.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
One year after landing James Harden, the Nets only have played 16 games with their assembled Big 3 \u2014 also including Kevin Durant and Kyrie Irving \u2014 in the lineup. They have won 13 of those contests, however, including an impressive blowout performance Wednesday night at Eastern Conference-leading Chicago. The question remains: How can the<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":11649,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[175],"tags":[1709,367,366,1287,1056],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nbanewsinsider.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11648"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nbanewsinsider.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nbanewsinsider.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nbanewsinsider.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nbanewsinsider.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=11648"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.nbanewsinsider.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11648\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":11650,"href":"https:\/\/www.nbanewsinsider.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11648\/revisions\/11650"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nbanewsinsider.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/11649"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nbanewsinsider.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=11648"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nbanewsinsider.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=11648"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nbanewsinsider.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=11648"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}