The Nets have maintained a calm disposition over the past couple weeks about Kevin Garnett’s ongoing bout with back spasms, constantly and consistently saying it’s not a big deal and he’ll be back on the court soon.
“Nope. No concerns,” coach Jason Kidd said after a practice on March 4, adding, “It’s March. He has to play all 82?”
“The one thing with KG — and I think we’ve done with all our guys — it’s more about getting them to the point where they’re ready for the stretch [run],” Nets general manager Billy King said in an interview with SiriusXM NBA Radio two days later. “There’s no timetable on it … [it’s] just day-to-day. When he’s ready to go, he’ll be back.”
But Garnett’s absence stretched to nine games when he sat out of Monday’s game against the Suns in Brooklyn, and before the game Kidd announced that not only would Garnett sit against the Suns, but he would also miss Wednesday’s game against the Bobcats and Friday against the Celtics before being reevaluated Saturday before the Nets head out on a three-game trip next week.
Suddenly, that puts the number of games Garnett will miss in a row at at least 11, and makes it time to start wondering just when he will return.
“We’re going to reevaluate KG on Saturday, so he’ll be out through the whole week and we’ll take a look at him on Saturday,” Kidd said. “We felt that we can hold him out until Saturday and reevaluate to see if he’d be ready for Dallas. But there’s no setbacks.”
There’s a reason Kidd and the Nets have so stridently stuck to the rest and limited minutes regimen they’ve had Garnett on all season, and it was precisely to try and keep the 37-year-old big man as healthy and productive as possible heading into the stretch run and next month’s playoffs.
Even when the Nets were struggling mightily during the season’s first couple months — and Garnett was struggling even more — Kidd stuck to his guns, and rightfully so, taking the only sensible approach with a player that has now played over a combined 1,500 regular-season and playoff games and nearly 54,000 minutes over his 19-year-NBA career.
But even the best-laid plans can go awry, and that’s clearly what happened here. Garnett began dealing with back spasms prior to the Nets facing the Bucks on March 1, missing the end of the team’s six-game, two-week circus trip following the All-Star break. Then, after sitting out the following week and four more games, including the team’s second and final trip to Boston of the season, he was declared ready to return last Monday against the Raptors.
However, just minutes before the game, Garnett was scratched from the lineup after his back tightened up during warm-ups, and hasn’t been seen since.
“He tightened up, so we pulled the plug on him,” Kidd said after that game. “We will see how he feels tomorrow.”
With the Nets surprisingly rolling along without him, going 6-2 in the eight games Garnett had missed prior to facing the Suns, there’s no reason to rush him back into the lineup.
But there’s also little doubt if the Nets want to make the kind of playoff run they still believe they can, they’re going to need Garnett’s intensity, defensive acumen and playoff experience. And, after being sidelined for over two weeks, it’s fair to wonder when Garnett will return — and how long it will take him to round back into form when he does.
The Nets already have plenty of experience dealing with back spasms this season, after watching Andrei Kirilenko sit out for most of training camp and virtually the entire first two months of the season before finally returning to the lineup in late December. There were multiple instances where Kirilenko was on the verge of returning — as Garnett was last week — only to have his back tighten up, causing him to spend a couple more weeks back on the shelf.
Things are going fine in Brooklyn for now without their future Hall of Fame big man. But until Garnett is back on the floor and playing, his absence will loom over the team regardless of how well the Nets are performing.