The Brooklyn Nets have suffered a major dip in form of late, and that’s down in a big way to being without their talisman Kevin Durant. The 33-year-old has been out with a sprained MCL and has missed 16 games, and last took to the court on January 15th.

During Durant’s layoff, Steve Nash’s side has struggled for form and has won just two of their last 14 games and has fallen to eighth in the Western Conference after a very strong start to the season.

At the start of the season, the Brooklyn Nets led the way in terms of the NBA odds, but their recent poor form has seen them drop to third behind the Golden State Warriors and the Phoenix Suns, and no doubt Nash will be hoping that Durant can return in due course to help in getting his side’s season back on track.

Durant has started to make tentative moves towards a return but is still seemingly some way from getting back among Nash’s set-up. There was talk he’d be back after the All-Star break, but that hasn’t materialized as yet;

A few days ago, Nash commented;

“We don’t want to jeopardize there and have a setback where he misses another six to 12 games, so I think we’ll be cautious coming out of the break. There’s a chance he could play, but I think it’s more likely that we don’t get our hopes that he’s going to play the first game out of the break.”

And clearly, this is the right approach, but at the same time, it’s become abundantly clear just how important Durant is to the Nets’ push for a spot in the postseason, ideally without having to take part in the ‘play-in’ tournament.

Nash might have hoped to make use of Ben Simmons in the interim, the Philadelphia 76ers star having been traded in with James Harden moving in the other direction, but the Australian hasn’t played all year. This is due to issues between the player and his former team, rather than injury, but he won’t be thrown in at the deep end either;

“No, yeah, not yet. He’s still going through all his assessments and his prep work with the performance team and trying to assess this layoff and make a plan and the forming and beginning steps of that plan,” said Nash on Simmons’ availability.

“I don’t know that they’re there yet, but it’ll be very similar to that. He gets back on the court; we continue the assessment process. When he reaches barriers, we allow more until he’s crossed the line on all the different parameters and consecutive high-intensity workouts where our performance team trusts he’s safe enough not only to perform but recover and to withstand the demands of the game.” Nash added.

The wheels are threatening to fall off Brooklyn’s season, and they’ll need to get back to their best when they next take to the court, which will be on February 24th when they take on the in-form Boston Celtics who destroyed the Nets 126-91 earlier this month.