Nets Notebook: With Joe Harris, Seth Curry ailing, injuries starting to pile up

Joe Harris did not practice on Tuesday and will not play against the Bucks. Harris did some light shooting on Tuesday, head coach Steve Nash said, but the team is monitoring the soreness in his foot and will see how he responds to shootaround on Wednesday.

Nash also said sharpshooter Seth Curry won’t be playing in either of the remaining two preseason games. Curry is “progressing, doing some light contact,” but has not yet advanced to five-on-five scrimmages.

Asked if the combo guard will be available for the Oct. 19 regular-season opener against the New Orleans Pelicans, Nash said: “Possibly. We’ll see. It might be too much for me to commit to that right now, but we’ll see how it goes.”

Elsewhere on the roster, combo guard Edmond Sumner has suffered a hip strain and it’s unclear whether or not he plays against the Bucks on Wednesday. Also, TJ Warren remains out while he recovers from stress fractures in his foot that have cost him each of the past two seasons. Warren is scheduled to be re-evaluated in November.

The Nets did acquire Royce O’Neale during the offseason, and O’Neale’s presence as a 3-and-D wing will help offset the other absences in the rotation. Nash said the additions GM Sean Marks made to the roster will help the team sustain any long stretches of injury.

“The amount of shooters that were out and the way [last] season transpired, but I think we’ve had a good two weeks already,” he said. “Now we’ve got to keep building and [keep in mind] how healthy we are in different pockets of the season. I think we have a roster more suited to kind of continue what we’re doing.”

KD’S COURT TIME

Asked what his ideal minutes workload is in a game, superstar forward Kevin Durant deadpanned: “48 [minutes] again.”

Durant said he has no preferred number of minutes and that his workload depends on how well the team can play when he’s on the bench.

“Every coach that I play for wants to keep my minutes down,” he said. “But it’s like, when the game is tight or you’re not playing well, you’re not gonna look over and say, ‘Well, I wanna keep his minutes down tonight,’ so he’s just gonna throw me in the game.

“So we play well, my minutes will be down. If we not, I’ve gotta play more.”

Nash said the most difficult part of managing Durant’s minutes comes when the team is stricken by injury.

“In a perfect world, we can really limit his minutes so he’s fresh and can get through the season, but we don’t live in a perfect world, so it would be ideal if we can keep his minutes down and it’s just something we have to communicate on continually and try to figure out the best action forward,” he said. “It can be really challenging, especially when we’re not healthy. When you’re going down the pecking order and a lot of guys who are actually rotation or starters are out, it does make it more difficult, but that’s part of it. And we’ll have some decisions to make and we just have to communicate through it.”

Durant, 34, is entering Year 15 and has averaged just under 37 minutes per game his career, 35.6 with the Nets.

KYRIE THE CARETAKER

Kyrie Irving said he was a “caretaker,” “midhusband,” “doula,” and an at-home chef in the days after his wife gave birth last Tuesday.

Durant said he hasn’t seen that side of his superstar teammate just yet.

“Everybody’s got different sides to ‘em, but he brings some sort of that caretaker and nurturer type of vibe here, especially with the younger players,” he said. “So you can tell that he’s excited to be a new pop, and it’s three kids for him now. I see a couple grays in his hair, so I can tell [the newborn son] is keeping him up a lot of nights, but it’s good they’ve got an addition to the family — we’ve got an addition to the family — and he’s back on the team now, so we can get going.”