In December of 2020, Kyrie Irving skipped the Nets’ media day because, as he said at the time, “I do not talk to pawns.”
This season’s Nets media day is Monday at the Barclays Center. Taken together, two recent reports strongly suggest that Irving will not be able to attend because he is not vaccinated against the coronavirus.
New York City has a vaccine mandate for venues like the Barclays Center; players on the Knicks and Nets must be vaccinated to play home games and enter their home arenas. The Knicks say 100% of their players and staff are vaccinated.
Nets GM Sean Marks admits that’s not the case with his team. “There would obviously be a couple people missing from that picture,” Marks said Tuesday. “I won’t get into who it is, but we feel confident in the following several days before camp everybody would be allowed to participate and so forth.” The Nets’ first preseason home game is Oct. 8 and their first regular season home game is Oct. 24.
According to a Fox Sports report on Thursday, Irving is one of those unvaccinated players. And while Marks was confident it wouldn’t be an issue — New York’s mandate simply requires proof of one dose — a report from Rolling Stone indicated it could be more complicated.
Irving does indeed follow an Instagram account that recently claimed “the COVID-19 vaccine is fulfilling prophecy of Satan’s ultimate plan to enslave the human soul.” But the guard has always been conspiracy-curious, especially on Instagram.
More noteworthy: Irving’s aunt Tyki Irving all but confirmed her nephew is proudly unvaccinated. Tyki Irving is the executive director of Kyrie Irving’s KAI Family Foundation, which leads Irving’s extensive charity towards Black, indigenous, environmental and many other causes.
“There are so many other players outside of him who are opting out, I would like to think they would make a way,” Tyki Irving told Rolling Stone. “It could be like every third game. So it still gives you a full season of being interactive and being on the court, but with the limitations that they’re, of course, oppressing upon you.”
Even the Rolling Stone report, which claimed a persistent “Moderna microchip misinformation campaign,” wrote that 50 to 60 NBA players are unvaccinated. That’s not “so many” that the NBA needs to make a plan to accommodate them; it’s right in line with what the league and union have said: About 90% of players are vaccinated against COVID.
When Kyrie Irving speaks to the media on Monday — presumably remotely — Tyki Irving predicted that he will issue some anti-vax nonsense about “Doctor False-y” and “providing just as much knowledge and research base that you necessarily don’t have to take this vaccine.”
Tyki said that Kyrie’s supposed objection to vaccination was “not religious-based, it’s moral-based.” Unlike Andrew Wiggins, then, Irving will seemingly not seek a religious exemption to his city’s indoor vaccine requirement. And Wiggins’ request for a religious exemption was rejected by the NBA anyway.
