Kyrie Irving and Klay Thompson’s N.B.A. Returns Prompt Divergent Questions

Does Kyrie Irving give the Nets the best chance to win a championship if he can’t play at home, in Manhattan against the crosstown Knicks or in Toronto versus the rival Raptors because vaccination is a requisite for entering Canada?

N.B.A. championship basketball feeds off deep continuity. It requires a roster full of teammates who know one another’s every last on-court tendency. It flows with the timing and rhythm of a great Miles Davis quintet. Are the Nets better for having Irving? Or will toggling him in and out of the lineup through the regular season and into the playoffs keep them from ever getting into that kind of title-winning groove?

We’ve seen no better N.B.A. tandem, no better groove than Curry and Thompson playing off one another before Thompson’s initial injury. Even when the team had Durant, the most potent basketball force on the planet, the two longtime guards were the Warriors’ beating heart. (Aided, we know, by Draymond Green.)

This season, Golden State has been superb, perched again atop the league standings with Curry playing at league M.V.P. level. But nothing will feel quite right until Thompson is back in the mix.

His return could come as soon as Sunday when the Warriors play the Cleveland Cavaliers in San Francisco. That would be 941 days since he tore the anterior cruciate ligament in his left knee during the 2019 N.B.A. finals, and 417 days since he ripped his right Achilles’ tendon while working out.

During that time, the N.B.A. has been bereft of one of its smoothest shooters and best defenders, a player popular enough to leave fans and most of the league mesmerized by even the smallest viral video clips showing him on the mend. There’s Thompson with his bulldog Rocco, cruising in a cool convertible. Or captaining his 37-foot fishing boat on the San Francisco Bay, gushing about the return: “I get chills when I think of coming back, I can’t wait!”

Or practicing with the Warriors’ developmental team, hitting a dart-like 3-point game-winner.

There may be no more touching N.B.A. moment this year than when a sorrowful Thompson remained on the bench in street clothes after a home win against the Portland Trail Blazers, a towel draped over his head as he commiserated on all he was missing.

Article source: https://www.nytimes.com/2022/01/07/sports/basketball/kyrie-irving-klay-thompson-return-date.html