The Brooklyn Nets announced that All-Star forward Kevin Durant will miss tonight's game against the Philadelphia 76ers due to the league's health and safety protocols. It has been a wild 24 hours for the former MVP, as he was unable to start last night's game vs. Toronto because of contact tracing and then was later cleared to play in the game, but was ultimately taken out again midway through the 3rd quarter because of the league's protocols. 


Durant later went to Twitter to describe his frustration with the situation: 


Free me

— Kevin Durant (@KDTrey5) February 6, 2021

The NBA that night gave a statement:


"Kevin Durant has tested negative three times in the last 24 hours, including two negative PCR tests today. However someone he interacted with this afternoon subsequently had an inconclusive test result return shortly before the game. Durant was initially held out of the game while that result was being reviewed. Under the league's health and safety protocols, we do not require a player to be quarantined until a close contact has a confirmed positive test. During the game, a positive result was returned for the person Durant interacted with this afternoon. Once that test was confirmed positive, out of an abundance of caution, Durant was removed from the game, and contact tracing is underway to determines if he was in fact a close contact of the positive individual."


It was then reported that KD would not be able to travel with the team to Philadelphia last night and could even be in jeopardy of missing multiple games, but the Nets designated Durant as 'questionable' this morning which makes the situation ever more confusing. Durant missed a chunk of games earlier in the season due to the league's health and safety protocols and will hope to avoid a similar situation.

Update: Head coach Steve Nash has now confirmed that Durant will be eligible to re-join the team on Friday. Durant will miss the next week of basketball for Brooklyn.