Cam Johnson’s final game as a Net may have already happened.
The star forward and team’s second-leading scorer, who has missed the past two games with a re-aggravated right ankle sprain, sat out Monday’s 110-96 loss to the Kings and will be reevaluated next week, said coach Jordi Fernandez.
Johnson will miss the next two games — at Charlotte and at Houston — this week, which leaves only two more games to play before the trade deadline on Feb. 6.
“He’ll be reevaluated I think next week. He’s out right now,” Fernandez said before tipoff at Barclays Center on Monday. “Obviously we want him to get that ankle right. He was good when he came back, it’s just like he tweaked it again twice. And again, it’s unlucky, but we just want to make sure that now it’s strong enough that he’ll be able to play through things and he’s 100 percent. Obviously, we want him back. We love having Cam Johnson, because you guys know his leadership and also the impact he has for us, but right now this is the situation that we have to deal with.”
Johnson is the latest Net whose name has come up in trade rumors following the departures of Dorian Finney-Smith and Dennis Schroder.
One of the teams Johnson has been linked to is Sacramento.
Johnson initially injured his ankle in the final seconds of the Nets’ 113-110 win over the Bucks on Jan. 2 while coming down with a rebound.
The injury sidelined him for five games, until his return against Portland on Jan. 14, when he scored 24 points. He re-injured the ankle in a loss to the Knicks on Jan. 21.
Noah Clowney exited late in the second quarter with what appeared to be a left ankle injury and was eventually ruled out for the remainder of the game.
Following the Nets’ seventh straight loss, Fernandez did not have an update on the young forward.
Clowney went up for a rebound, didn’t come down with it, and landed on Domantas Sabonis’ foot. He went down in what appeared to be a lot of pain and was holding his left leg. He was helped off the court by the training staff.
Cam Thomas is set to undergo scans on his injured left hamstring Wednesday, Fernandez said. Following that, the Nets will provide a timeline for his return.
Thomas, who is the team’s top scorer, averaging 24.7 points, has missed the past 13 games.
Ben Simmons (lower back soreness), Bojan Bogdanovic (left foot injury recovery), Johnson (right ankle sprain), Maxwell Lewis (left tibia fracture), Thomas (left hamstring strain), Trendon Watford (left hamstring strain) all sat out against the Kings on Monday.
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