Sections

Advertisement

4 burning questions we have ahead of Kyrie Irving's season debut with the Nets

It’s been a long time since we’ve seen Kyrie Irving play basketball, but it’s happening soon. Very, very soon.

The All-Star point guard will make his season debut for the Nets on the road Wednesday night against the Indiana Pacers. Irving has been absent from the team because of his vaccination status.

Local regulations in New York have blocked Irving from playing in games with the Nets all season long, but he could still play on the road where those regulations didn’t apply.

However, the team refused to allow him to be what they were calling a “part-time” player initially, telling that unless he was vaccinated he could not play.

Now, here we are months later, and the Nets have completely changed their tune. Irving is back in the lineup. A weird Brooklyn Nets season just got even weirder.

With Irving back, even partially, the landscape of the NBA completely flips. So what does this mean for the Nets? The rest of the league? Let’s talk about it.

Are the Nets actually title favorites again?

Heading into the season with expectations of everyone being healthy and, well, vaccinated, the Brooklyn Nets were far and away the surest bet to win a championship.

They probably would have last season had both Kyrie Irving and James Harden been healthy. Even then, they were still just a shoe size down from advancing off of a Kevin Durant game-winning shot that ended up only being a game-tying shot.

Their big 3 were absolutely incredible together.

Now that games have been played, though, we see the Warriors, Nets and Jazz have proved to be formidable out in the West. The Bucks are also incredible when healthy in the Eastern Conference. All have clearly demonstrated themselves to be just as good, if not better, than the iteration of the Nets we’ve seen so far this season.

But that iteration is gone now. Irving is back — at least partially. And that means the offense that was absolutely historic last season is partially back, too. Along with a much-improved defense and a few new pieces.

So does Irving’s return make the Nets a favorite again? I think yes. But it’s certainly not a guarantee.

Will the Nets actually be as good as they were last year?

(AP Photo/Jeff Chiu)

That’s the big question here and is exactly what we just have to wait and see on.

This isn’t the same team as last season. There are new pieces here that are playing bigger roles now. Patty Mills, Lamarcus Aldridge, Paul Millsap, Deandre Bembry and more.

Irving will certainly alleviate the pressure on some of those players and make things easier for everyone. But they’re going to have to figure out how they fit with him — something that other teams spent the early half of the season doing. Now the Nets are playing catchup as other teams are hitting their stride and that’s always tough to navigate.

Irving is great enough that it might not matter and the Nets might hit the ground running. We just have to wait and see.

What will Irving's conditioning be like?

Irving has been out of COVID-19 protocols and back with the team for just over a week now.

Naturally, instead of just throwing him out there, the Nets have been giving Irving practice time and allowing him to get back into game shape to be prepared for Wednesday night.

He hasn’t played basketball since the summer, though. At least not NBA ball. It’s reasonable to expect there will be some sort of minutes restriction placed upon him from the get-go. The Nets could even bring him off the bench.

Nash hasn’t exactly been clear about it. We just know he won’t be playing a bunch.

We’ll see what it looks like.

Will him playing part-time be an issue?

Well, we can’t really speak to the locker room dynamic with the Nets. But from a basketball perspective with the NBA season in mind, it almost certainly will be.

Irving will only be available for road games with the Nets this season so long as he is unvaccinated. In a series of 7 games, he’ll only be available for 3 of them if the Nets have homecourt and they are the number 1 seed in the Eastern Conference right now.

Let’s say they get to the Conference Finals and see the Bucks or they run into an upstart Bulls team in the second round. Only having Irving for 3 of 7 games is rough.

With Kevin Durant and James Harden, the Nets might have the talent to get around that in the first round. Maybe even the second. But the third round of the playoffs? The NBA finals? That could be detrimental.

Regardless, though. Irving is back with the Nets and he’s playing. I can’t wait to see what he finally looks like with this team.

More NBA