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“The Bucks, Celtics, Heat, 76ers and everyone else vying for a championship in the East shouldn’t be happy about this news.ĭurant nearly leaving the conference would’ve kept potentially the best player in the league out of their hair until the NBA Finals. One of the losers I couldn’t agree more with is the entire Eastern Conference. But now that it’s settled, we can start picking up the pieces.Īs my buddy Sykes wrote, there are several winners (including the Nets) and losers (KD) from how this thing played out. It shouldn’t be a surprise that the Nets struggled to find a suitable trade for one of the very best players in the league. Some NBA goodness from around the USA TODAY Sports network.īack to that news about Kevin Durant staying in Brooklyn. Instead, put that energy towards hoping the injury is as minimal as possible and Holmgren is able to get back to doing the thing he loves sooner than later. It absolutely sucks, but let’s not overreact by calling for players to stop playing in games that matter to a lot of people. We’ve seen dozens of NBA players in Pro-Am games this summer (and many more in past years), and Holmgren’s injury is the first potentially serious one to come up. As long as the court is deemed safe, I have absolutely no problem with NBA players keeping their games sharp by doing just that. But news flash for anyone who thinks NBA players shouldn’t be playing basketball at all in the summer: Basketball players play basketball. That’s absolutely not the surface Holmgren or anyone should have been playing on. The CrawsOver had to be stopped reportedly because the court was too slippery. But before you go down that road, allow me to make one amendment: Players shouldn’t play in games with unsafe court conditions. Now, I know that might lead you to conclude that NBA players should stop playing in these games during the offseason.
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A video showing Holmgren limping after defending LeBron James on a fast break had been making the rounds since Saturday, and that certainly looks like the moment it happened. It supposedly took place at Jamal Crawford’s CrawsOver Pro-Am in Seattle. On that note, the injury is believed to have occurred in a game that didn’t matter - not as far as the NBA is concerned. As well as for the Thunder, who are finally putting some good pieces together after a long rebuild, and for all of us fans who were looking forward to seeing a unique talent in games that actually matter. This is potentially devastating news for Holmgren, who was the second overall pick in this year’s draft. He’s undergoing further evaluations to determine a timeline. Just when it looked like we’d get a quiet day in the Association following Tuesday’s news that Kevin Durant would remain in Brooklyn, awful injury news about Thunder rookie Chet Holmgren came from nowhere.Įxams show Holmgren potentially has ligament damage in his foot, The Athletic’s Shams Charania reported Wednesday. Subscribe here to get it delivered to your inbox every afternoon. Welcome to Layup Lines, our daily NBA newsletter where we’ll prep you for a tip-off of tonight’s action, from what to watch to bets to make.
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