Nets GM Says Kevin Durant’s Potential Return This Season Is ‘$110 Million Question’

When, and if, the NBA returns this summer, could Kevin Durant suit up for the Brooklyn Nets?

Sean Mark’s, the team’s GM, isn’t ruling it out.

“That’s a $110 million question,” Marks told Newshub in his native New Zealand for an article published Saturday (via ESPN). “In all seriousness, we’ve tried not to talk about his timeline a lot.

“He knows his body better than anybody. Our performance team and training staff have done a tremendous job getting him to this point, but I just don’t know how coming out of this pandemic will affect anybody, let alone Kevin.”

The NBA suspended it season March 11, and Commissioner Adam Silver has said he would restart play only once he got the “all clear” from public health officials.

Some NBA training facilities will open on Friday, but the Nets’ is not one of them.

Although the NBA would like to crown a champion this season, it remains an open question whether play will restart this summer. It’s also possible the 2020-21 season won’t begin until December, so potentially there will be no games played until that. And that would make the whole Durant question moot.

Durant was one of four Nets to test positive for the coronavirus in March, but has since recovered.

Durant did not play this past season as he recovered from Achilles surgery, but he was expected to play next season for the Nets. He was also among the finalists for the U.S. Olympic team which was to play this summer before the Tokyo Games were canceled.

Rich Kleiman, Durant’s agent, told The Washington Post at the end of February that it was “definitely a possibility” that Durant would play in Tokyo.

If the NBA playoffs began today, the Nets (30-34) would be the No. 7 seed in the East and would face No. 2 Toronto (46-18), the team against whom Durant injured his Achilles last summer in Game 5 of the NBA Finals.

There is also the question of Kyrie Irving’s status with the Nets. He has been since February after undergoing arthroscopic shoulder surgery.

Sources said Irving relocated to Arizona from New Jersey during the pandemic.

As for Durant’s potential return, Marks said, “”When you’ve got enough invested in a player like Kevin, we’re never going to push him to come back,” Marks told Newshub. “When the timing is right, he’ll be 100 percent when he gets on the court.

“I can tell you this though — before the pandemic, he looked like Kevin Durant and that’s a good thing.”