Nets to sign James Ennis, Shaquille Harrison via hardship exemption

The Nets are planning to use the hardship exemption to sign forward James Ennis, Shams Charania of The Athletic tweets. They will also give Shaquille Harrison a 10-day deal using the same exemption, Chris Haynes of Yahoo Sports tweets.

The team was missing seven players on Thursday due to health and safety protocols — James Harden, Bruce Brown, Paul Millsap, Jevon Carter, James Johnson, LaMarcus Aldridge and DeAndre’ Bembry. Joe Harris is recovering from ankle surgery.

Despite being shorthanded, Brooklyn won its fourth straight by downing Philadelphia 114-105. The club had only nine players available, including Langston Galloway, who received a 10-day contract on Thursday using the exemption.

The well-travelled Ennis appeared in 41 games for the Magic last season, including 37 starts. He averaged 8.4 PPG and 4.0 RPG in 24.0 MPG. He failed to find a free agent offer after playing out his one-year, $3.3M contract with Orlando.

Harrison played a combined 34 regular-season games off the bench for the Jazz and Nuggets last season. He also appeared in nine playoff games for Denver. He was waived by the Sixers during training camp.

Prior to Thursday’s game, Nets coach Steve Nash expressed concern about overusing Kevin Durant.

“I don’t know we can continue to lean on him the way we have,” he said, according to ESPN’s Tim Bontemps. “It doesn’t feel right.”