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The Nets have applied for a disabled player exception following David Nwaba’s season-ending Achilles injury Thursday night in Brooklyn’s loss to San Antonio. Nwaba was hurt in the third quarter falling to the floor with what was diagnosed as a Achilles injury.
The 26-year-old underwent surgery Friday in New York, per a Nets press release issued at 8 p.m. The release confirmed he’s lost for the season.
Brooklyn Nets guard/forward David Nwaba underwent successful surgery today to repair a ruptured right Achilles tendon. The procedure was performed by Dr. Martin O’Malley at the Hospital for Special Surgery.
The injury, which occurred during last night’s game at San Antonio, will result in Nwaba missing the remainder of the season.
In 20 appearances this season, Nwaba recorded averages of 5.2 points and 2.3 rebounds in 13.4 minutes per game, shooting 52.1 percent from the field and 42.9 percent from 3-point range.
So what’s next?
In a series of tweets overnight Thursday and Friday, ESPN’s Bobby Marks laid out the possibilities for the Nets once an NBA certified physician reviews the application and makes a determination that the injury is season ending...
The David Nwaba Disabled Player Exception would only be worth $839,427 which is below the prorated minimum for a player. Ex: If the Nets have an open roster spot (they do not) and sign a player like Iman Shumpert, he would be signed for the minimum, not the DPE.
— Bobby Marks (@BobbyMarks42) December 20, 2019
Marks also tweeted that with so many Nets players injured, Brooklyn could apply for a hardship exception, different from the DPE. A hardship exception is a temporary roster spot that must be granted by the NBA. It allows a team to exceed the 15-man maximum when it has at least four players who are sick or injured for longer than two weeks.
BKN will be able to file for a hardship exception after the 12/28 game at Houston. The exception allows the Nets to add a 16th player if the NBA deems that K. Irving and C. LeVert are out for another two weeks. Once either player returns, the player signed will need to be waived.
— Bobby Marks (@BobbyMarks42) December 20, 2019
Irving (shoulder impingement) and LeVert (thumb surgery) have been out since mid-November. Kevin Durant is recovering from his own Achilles injury and expectations are that he won’t return until next season. Finally, Nic Claxton has missed the last week with a hamstring issue.
Nets owner Joe Tsai offered his thoughts about Nwaba’s injury on Friday afternoon.
My heart aches to see David Nwaba go down. He is tenacious with such competitive spirit. Hope he will have a smooth recovery. @dnwaba0
— Joe Tsai (@joetsai1999) December 20, 2019
As for the immediate future, Kenny Atkinson was preaching “next man up.”
“When this happens, it’s kind of a shock,” Atkinson admitted. “We’ll get it together. We’ve got a great group of guys there in the locker room; we’ll get it together. … We’ll obviously have to have some support from our bench. Our young guys, they’ll have to step it up and pull a little of the slack.
“We’ve been here before. And we’re going to have to reconfigure the rotation and we’ll figure it out. We have Rodions [Kurucs]. We have [Dzanan] Musa. We have a lot of good players over there, so we’ll do our best to make up for David’s absence.”
- David Nwaba’s injury leaves Nets in a defensive reset - Brian Lewis - New York Posst
- Where do the Nets go after David Nwaba’s season-ending injury? - Alex Schiffer - The Athletic New York