Texas Basketball: Former Horn Kevin Durant tests positive for COVID-19

The first former Texas basketball player now in the NBA tested positive for COVID-19 that was reported on March 17, with star Kevin Durant.

Really the first tangible news connecting a former member of the Texas basketball program to the novel coronavirus in the midst of all the precautions for the pandemic involved superstar Brooklyn Nets forward Kevin Durant.

The Texas Longhorns basketball program hasn’t had any other former players that are currently playing in the NBA that tested positive for COVID-19 thus far. KD is also the biggest name around the NBA to have his positive testing of COVID-19 announced as of March 17.

The news that KD has tested positive for COVID-19 came from a team official release on March 17. It is unclear which of the four Nets players that tested positive for COVID-19 are actually showing symptoms. But Durant is the most high-profile of those four players that tested positive as we know it so far.

The first NBA player that tested positive for COVID-19 was the Utah Jazz center Rudy Gobert. He was later included on a list of players that tested positive for COVID-19 that also included teammate and star guard Donovan Mitchell and Detroit Pistons forward Christian Wood.

But the original report that emerged that showed Durant tested positive for COVID-19 came from Shams Charania of The Athletic. Apparently Durant said in response: “everyone be careful, take care of yourself in quarantine”. And that “we’re going to get through this”.

The identities of the other three Nets players has not been revealed yet. But KD is likely to be the biggest name of the bunch. It’s a good sign that he said he’s “feeling fine”. Mitchell was apparently feeling fine too after he tested positive for COVID-19, in a video that was posted to the NBA’s official Twitter page on March 14.

The NBA had its season put on hiatus back on March 11, after Gobert was the first player to test positive for COVID-19. Then the NBA would play out the March 11 slate of games and place the season on pause until this pandemic starts to clear up.

Longhorn men’s basketball was placed on hold too before they could play their first game in the Big 12 Tournament, which would’ve come on March 12 against the Texas Tech Red Raiders. The NCAA Tournament and the rest of the Big 12 Tournament was then cancelled.