Most of the NBA’s big decisions are made around the draft, or free agency, or in the locker room at halftime of a must-win playoff game. But on October 12, the Brooklyn Nets announced that star point guard Kyrie Irving will be ineligible to play or practice with the team until he receives the COVID-19 vaccine, sending ripples throughout the sports world.
“Kyrie has made a personal choice, and we respect his individual right to choose,” team GM Sean Marks wrote. “Currently the choice restricts his ability to be a full-time member of the team, and we will not permit any member of our team to participate with part-time availability.”
While most reporting has intimated that Irving’s refusal to get vaccinated involved an opposition to the vaccine itself, a story by The Athletic’s Shams Charania published October 12 that appeared to be sourced to Irving’s camp says that actually, “Irving is not anti-vaccine and that his stance is that he is upset that people are losing their jobs due to vaccine mandates.” It’s worth noting that, until an Instagram Live appearance on the evening of October 13, Irving hadn’t really elaborated on why he was refusing to be vaccinated.
“What would you do if you felt uncomfortable going into the season when you were promised that you would have exemptions or that you didn’t have to be forced to get the vaccine? This wasn’t an issue before the season started, this wasn’t something I foresaw coming that I prepared for and had a chance to strategize on what would be best for me and my family,” Irving said Wednesday. “I came into the season thinking that I was just gonna be able to play ball. Be able to use my talent to continue to inspire, influence people in the right way.”
(Irving also clarified that he does not plan on retiring, which had been the subject of some speculation, and will stay in shape in the hopes of eventually rejoining the team.)
He seemed frustrated that he has become central to the conversation about vaccines and vaccine mandates, repeatedly referring to himself as “a hooper” and highlighting the work of doctors and scientists. He stressed that this was not about the Brooklyn Nets themselves or his teammates, but that it’s about how he “is being grouped into something that’s bigger than the game of basketball.”
“It’s not about being anti-vax or being on one side or the other, it’s really about being true to what feels good for me. I’m still uncertain about a lot of things and that’s okay,” he said. “If I’m gonna be demonized for having more questions and taking my time to make a decision with my life, then that’s just what it is.”
He went on to note that he felt vaccine mandates violated people’s bodily autonomy.
“Nobody should be forced to do anything with their bodies,” he said. “If you choose to get the vaccine I support you, if you choose to be unvaccinated, I support you. Do what’s best for you, but that doesn’t mean going around and judging people for what they’re doing with their lives.”
Over 95 percent of NBA players were reportedly vaccinated as of late September, but there were a few notable holdouts, Irving being the most high-profile of them all. The Golden State Warriors’ Andrew Wiggins was in a similar position, ultimately deciding to get the shot, though he has still spoken critically about the situation. “The only options were to get vaccinated or not play in the NBA. It was a tough decision. Hopefully, it works out in the long run and in 10 years I’m still healthy,” he said.
Because the iconoclastic Irving plays in New York City, he is ineligible to participate in games in the Barclays Center due to city laws. Once that became public, something of a staring contest with the Nets’ brass ensued over whether Irving would be allowed to play with the team and participate in activities in other locations.
With the Nets in the same division as the New York Knicks, Irving would have been able to play in fewer than 40 games this season. Irving traveled to San Diego with the team for training camp, and is technically eligible to practice since the city ruled recently that the Nets’ practice space is a “private workspace” (the Barclays Center is not).
In an interview about the Kyrie decision, Marks said that Irving hadn’t received the COVID shot. “Well, if he was vaccinated, we wouldn’t be having this discussion. I think that’s probably pretty clear,” he remarked.
As Charania noted, Irving could potentially lose significant money from this decision–over $16 million in salary for 2021-22 and the opportunity to sign a contract extension worth $186 million. Irving has earned more than $150 million in his career thus far.
Presumably, the Nets’ decision to not allow Irving to be a part-time player was approved (or, at least, not opposed) by fellow team stars Kevin Durant and James Harden (both of whom are vaccinated), who were reportedly part of that conversation with Marks and team owner Joe Tsai.
In an October 13 interview, Harden shared his thoughts on Irving’s choice. “Kyrie believes in his beliefs [and] he stands firmly. We respect it, we all love Ky. But we have a job to do, and individually myself, I’m still wanting to set myself up for a championship. The entire organization is on the same path,” he explained.
Earlier in the month, Durant stressed that he didn’t want to influence what Kyrie chose to do, though he did hope that he would be part of the team. “This is his decision, that’s his choice, we all respect it, this is way bigger than hoops. I don’t even feel comfortable talking to him about stuff like this. I am just here to support and come in here and do my job as one of the leaders on the team,” he said.
Irving–and his aunt–figure heavily into a September 25 Rolling Stone story about NBA players who are skeptical of the vaccine, which reported that Irving had been liking Instagram posts by prominent anti-vax conspiracy theorists. Irving also caught flack for a tweet using the phrase “mask off” that many saw as being against mask regulations, though Irving later said it was unrelated to the pandemic.
As his star has risen since joining the league in 2011, Irving has found himself embroiled in several different controversies. In 2018, he apologized for stating that the Earth is flat, a comment he made that went viral in 2017. At Forbes’ Under 30 Summit, he spoke about going through a phase of interest in conspiracy theories.
“At the time, I was huge into conspiracies. Everybody’s been there. Like, ‘Yo what’s going on with our world?’ You click on a YouTube link and you see how deep the rabbit hole goes,” he said. “You realize the effect and the power of voice. Even if you believe in that, don’t come out and say that stuff, that’s for intimate conversations.”
Irving has also made a positive impact through charitable donations, being a vocal proponent of Black Lives Matter, and supporting the Standing Rock Sioux tribe population, of which he became a member this summer– not to mention his excellent play in 2020-21, when he shot 50/40/90 for the season.
Even if Irving misses the entire 2021-22 season, the Nets remain one of the favorites to win the league championship. But Nets fans can perhaps take hope in one thing: Now that Irving has said that he’s protesting penalties for those who refuse to follow vaccination mandates, rather than the vaccine itself, the door is theoretically left open for him to declare his point made, get vaccinated, and return to the court.