Hornets’ top reserve is feeling butterflies. Kelly Oubre is ready to blow kisses again
Something was different about Kelly Oubre over the past week and a half.
Forced to be in the comfort of his own residence after testing positive for COVID-19 and landing in the NBA’s health and safety protocols on Jan. 9, the Charlotte Hornets swingman virtually morphed into an unidentifiable person that even threw off his spouse.
Sitting out for four games before returning for their 111-102 win over Boston at TD Garden on Wednesday left him appreciative.
“Yeah man, 100 percent,” Oubre told The Observer. “I was a fan at home. Like, ‘What time does my team play?’ Just watching each and every step that the guys do, watching guys on the bench. Just watching to be as involved as possible from a distance. That was me at home. I’m sure my wife was definitely annoyed with me.
“She was like, ‘Bro, you don’t even talk this much during the season.’ One of those things. So I’m just glad to be back out there.”
His teammates were equally thrilled.
“K.O. has won a lot of games for us,” Terry Rozier said. “So it’s always good to have one of your important players back.”
Oubre poured in 18 points off the bench in his first game in more than a week, sparking the Hornets by canning 7 of 14 attempts and going 3-for-7 behind the 3-point line. He was once again their top reserve, igniting them for stretches and draining big shots in the fourth quarter.
“Well it gives us more firepower off the bench obviously,” coach James Borrego said. “We’ve missed him in a couple of these games, especially at the 3-point line. He’s one of those guys that’s so versatile that can get to the rim. I want him to get to the rim more. Even more so than he’s doing right now.
“But his ability to stretch the floor and play out on the perimeter, he gives us great length defensively and just adds depth to our bench there, and allows guys to play their role, and fit their role and not be asked to do too much. I think obviously playing Cody (Martin) those types of minutes is too many. But we get Kelly back and we move forward.”
All the excitement of Oubre’s return came with another emotion: Anxiety. He’s in his seventh season, albeit his first with the Hornets, but that doesn’t mean he’s not human.
Butterflies swimming through the pit of his stomach.
“Yeah, jitters,” Oubre said. “Just the whole process. You get told that you have COVID and you test positive, have to go home immediately, quarantine for 10 days and you are pretty much on lockdown until you’re cleared to play. I was cleared two days ago and got on a flight yesterday morning and came to Boston, just kind of like that first feeling of getting back into the action. That’s why I mean jitters.”
Oubre was informed Monday that his cycle threshold levels were going up (that’s a good sign) and his chances of reemerging with his teammates were vastly improving, providing him hope he was finally good to go again. While the Hornets were pounding the New York Knicks in their Martin Luther King Jr. Day matchup, he was at Spectrum Center hoisting up shots in their practice facility.
“Because I wanted to kind of get back into the rhythm and start that whole process,” Oubre said. “So that was my first day back. And the next day (assistant GM) Buzz (Peterson) calls and says, ‘You have a flight at 9 a.m. to Boston. And I’m like, ‘Let’s get to work.’ ”
Finally, Oubre wasn’t powerless. It invigorated him immediately. The boredom attached to sitting around the house, unable to do what he enjoys almost more than anything in the world and gets paid for, left him in a weird state of being stuck in-between.
“Guys will tell you too that if they get COVID, it’s kind of like. ‘Damn, what’s next?’ ” Oubre said. “It kind of feels like offseason because you are just sitting there and you can’t work out, you can’t do things. But then you’ve got to get right back into action. So it just felt just like the summertime. You are coming back from working out in the summer from wherever you are at, coming back to the team and meeting the guys, stuff like that.”
Mostly asymptomatic other than signs that typically accompany a cold — nose congestion, a little bit of a cough — what bothered him most was the timing. No one ever wants to get sick. Doing it just days after a record-setting 3-point display was an emotional low blow.
That stung. The only uplifting thing was seeing them go 3-1 without him.
“It’s the worst honestly because you work your butt off all season long to create a routine, to create a flow within the season, within this team,” Oubre said. “And I was forced to take a step back for 10 days and be without the team. And they obviously were rolling. And now I have to come back in and not force anything, but just try to get how I was before I left.”
From afar, he was impressed.
“I just seen a lot of defense, and sharing and playing together, having fun,” Oubre said. “It was definitely beautiful to watch because that’s who we are. That’s who we’ve been grinding each and every day to become and I feel like we are starting to find our identity and we have to keep that consistency. So I’m just here to follow everybody else’s lead.”
This story was originally published January 19, 2022 at 3:48 PM.
