Kevin Durant suits up for the Brooklyn Nets, looks like his old self

12/13/2020

Kyrie Irving, Kevin Durant — Jayne Kamin-Oncea/Getty Images

Kevin Durant’s first appearance with the Brooklyn Nets may have come in a meaningless game, but it still felt significant.

The Brooklyn Nets beat the Washington Wizards 119-114 in their first preseason game of the year, but the end result was far from the biggest takeaway here. The real story is the return of Kevin Durant. The two-time Finals MVP played for the first time since June of 2019 and he looks like the same old Durant.

Kevin Durant’s first bucket in a Brooklyn uniform pic.twitter.com/6cLaCWjikF

— Danny Small (@dwsmall8) December 13, 2020

It’s fitting that his first bucket was a dunk. It’s almost as if Durant wanted to throw one down right off the bat to let everyone know he’s healthy. The crown jewel of 2019 free agency is back and Nets fans deserve to feel good about this game, even if it is meaningless in the grand scheme of things.

Durant finished the game with 15 points on 5-for-12 from the floor. Although he wasn’t perfect, he looks like he’s ready to hit the ground running this year.

The enigma that is Kyrie Irving was Brooklyn’s top performer of the night. Irving’s 18 points in 17 minutes led all scorers and he did it at a remarkably efficient pace. The six-time All-Star went 7-for-9 from the floor and 2-for-3 from deep.

So far in training camp and preseason, Irving is making most of his headlines off the court. The media blackout, his Instagram live shows, and everything that comes with the mercurial point guard is all anyone wants to talk about when it comes to the Brooklyn Nets.

But if the Nets are winning games and he’s knocking down shots like this, no one is going to care about all the other stuff.

If Kyrie can do this all year long, none of the other shit matters at all pic.twitter.com/84DERePvo3

— Danny Small (@dwsmall8) December 13, 2020

PReseason NBA games are the very definition of meaningless, so we won’t read into anything we saw too much, but seeing Durant and Irving take the floor together as Brooklyn Nets deserves some recognition.