5 things to watch for in the second half of the 2020-21 NBA season

2. Kevin Durant’s return and Blake Griffin’s arrival

The Brooklyn Nets have been on an absolute tear in their nine games leading into the All-Star break. They lost just once in those nine outings, sporting the league’s top offense — tied with Phoenix at 122.6 — with a passable enough defense just inside the bottom-10.

The scariest part of Brooklyn’s success in this stretch? It’s all come without the services of Kevin Durant, who hasn’t played in almost a month with a hamstring injury.

Brooklyn is torching opposing defenses like nothing we’ve ever seen before, doing so without its best player. Durant, Kyrie Irving, and James Harden haven’t even played 200 minutes together. The latter two seem to be thriving just fine alongside each other in the backcourt, with the Nets posting an offensive rating of 124.9 in their minutes over this stretch. The presence of an all-around yet unselfish offensive talent like KD can only help them reach frightening new levels of productivity.

A similar sentiment might apply to Blake Griffin, who was recently signed after agreeing to a buyout with Detroit. Though he doesn’t exactly address the more pressing concerns the Nets currently have, Griffin, even with his wear and tear, offers intrigue in Brooklyn’s undersized frontcourt. He can function as a passing hub for the second unit while picking apart defenses after they force the ball out of the hands of his All-Star teammates.

The experiment being conducted in Brooklyn has added multiple layers as the season has progressed. With one returning and another arriving, the study will only grow more intriguing as the stakes ramp up closer to the playoffs.