Brooklyn Nets’ Kyrie Irving wants to be a voice for the unvaccinated voiceless

kyrie irving1

When the NBA preseason began in September, there were many uncomfortable moments in the first media days of the season, as journalists openly asked players and coaches about their vaccine status. Like many other sports, the NBA does not have a formal or strict vaccine mandate. The NBA and individual teams are aiming for persuasion for players who are vaccine-hesitant. So far, it’s mostly worked – even players who have said dumb sh-t about vaccines decided to get vaxxed to be able to work and play freely in safe conditions for themselves and their teammates.

It turns out that there is one big exception though. His name is Kyrie Irving. We previously discussed Irving in 2017, when he insisted the earth is flat, so I guess we shouldn’t be surprised by the fact that this is the guy who is too anti-science to get the Covid vaccine. Irving is currently with the Brooklyn Nets. Only he’s been benched indefinitely, possibly for the whole season, possibly forever, because the dude refuses to get the Covid vaccine. The Nets organization gave Kyrie an ultimatum: take the vaccine or you can’t play. So far, neither side is budging:

Brooklyn Nets general manager Sean Marks has confirmed Kyrie Irving “will not play or practice with the team until he is eligible to be a full participant,” as issues relating to the star guard’s vaccination status continue.

On Friday, a New York City Hall official told CNN that Irving will be allowed to practice at the team’s facility but will not be eligible to play in the Nets’ home games at Barclays Center due to the city’s Covid-19 vaccine mandate. Head coach Steve Nash had admitted that his team will be without Irving for foreseeable home games but Marks said the Nets would not allow a member of the team to be part-time.

“Kyrie has made a personal choice, and we respect his individual right to choose,” Marks said in a statement. “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. It is imperative that we continue to build chemistry as a team and remain true to our long-established values of togetherness and sacrifice.

Irving, a seven-time All-Star, had spoken at the league’s media day last month of his excitement to play in front of fans again but refused to disclose his vaccination status, saying he “would like to keep all that private…I know that I’ll be there every day no matter what and just be present for my teammates as one of the leaders on the team,” he added.

[From CNN]

I wonder if Kyrie disclosed his unvaccinated status when he got to preseason training last month? Clearly, he didn’t disclose it to the media – although he’s not the wily wordsmith he thinks he is, it was obvious he was unvaxxed – but I would assume that he did have to tell the Nets organization and the coaches. So they knew they were dealing with a ticking time bomb, and of course the sh-t hit the fan when the city got involved.

Everything got worse around this story when Kyrie decided that being an unvaccinated jackass made him some kind of hero or martyr. From The Athletic (via Nets Daily):

Multiple sources with direct knowledge of Irving’s decision have told The Athletic that 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 a stance that Irving has explained to close teammates. To him, this is about a grander fight than the one on the court and Irving is challenging a perceived control of society and people’s livelihood, according to sources with knowledge of Irving’s mindset. It is a decision that he believes he is capable to make given his current life dynamics. “Kyrie wants to be a voice for the voiceless,” one source said.

He’s a seven-time All-Star, two-time All-NBA member and former Rookie of the Year who now stands to lose over $200 million by deciding to use his platform to stand up for his stance of each and every person being able to decide for themselves on whether they should take the vaccine without impacts on job statuses. However, the fact of the matter is there are consequences for being unvaccinated in some industries and municipalities. Just as Irving wants to stick with his principle belief on the matter, policies and requirements are subject to local and federal governments.

[From The Athletic via Nets Daily]

No. No to all of this. Again, this is not about personal freedom, you moron. And arguing that you’re not going to take the vaccine as a way to protest vaccine mandates is one of the stupidest things I’ve ever f–king read.

ESPN’s Stephen A. Smith had some thoughts:

kyrie irving2

Photos courtesy of Kyrie’s IG.

You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.

58 Responses to “Brooklyn Nets’ Kyrie Irving wants to be a voice for the unvaccinated voiceless”

Comments are Closed

We close comments on older posts to fight comment spam.

  1. Amy Bee says:

    These anti-vaxxers are exhausting. That’s all I have to say.

    • josephine says:

      snowflakes and whiners and certainly not voiceless. they’re a high-pitch, grating stream of stupidity. toddlers stamping their feet and throwing themselves down on the ground. we get it — you only care about yourselves, but you don’t get to endanger others because you can’t get over yourselves,

      • goofpuff says:

        Yeah I don’t get it. The anti-vaxxers aren’t voiceless. In fact they have been constantly screaming it in every one’s faces for years now about all vaccines.

    • Rice says:

      Word. I’m not a fan of Stephen A. (especially after he booted out Max Kellerman because, reasons), but he’s spot on. Kyrie’s word salad excuse for not taking the vaccine makes no sense, as in, he wants to be the voice for those who may have lost their jobs due to the vaccine mandates but he’s also looking out for himself. Also, I’m not surprised by this flat-earther.

      Kyrie, when you’ve got The Former Guy tweeting support, you’ve got to rethink your message and priorities.

    • Ry says:

      Why are people such extremists? Can’t they actually be batshit crazy on a few things and reasonable on others? Nope. They go all in. It’s like it’s their job to be wrong about everything.
      Nor everyone with a mic in front of them had something worthy to say unless you count is as an example of what NOT to think.
      Alright. Here’s how he can be their voice; dress up like Bane for Halloween and lead the believers to an island on your dime and just stay there all of you. That would help. Let the rest of us take vaccines and turn into zombies if we want. So leave. Go.
      Don’t go too far or you’ll fall off the fucking planet, though.
      Idiots

  2. Sim Kin says:

    There is no mandate by the league or the Nets for Kyrie to get vaccinated and if the Nets were located in any other state except for maybe California this would also not be an issue. However, they are located in NY which has a mandate for indoor locations which means he wouldn’t be available for half of the season.

    All the Nets have said is that until he is eligible to play the full season he cannot play for them. This can either come from him becoming vaccinated or the mandate being lifted by NY.

    Kyrie is a mess but some of the reporting has made it seem like something other than the actual situation the Nets face. They cannot have a player who is only available for half a season.

    • STRIPE says:

      Shaq has the best take on this situation – it’s worth a Google. He basically says “you have a responsibility to play for this team because you took that $200m” so get vaccinated or GTFO. Privacy? No. There is no privacy when you sign up for this life, but it’s the deal you make to get that $200m

      • BothSidesNow says:

        @ STRIPE, as much as I enjoyed Stephan Smith calling him stupid, but I love the way Shaq put it into perspective, simple clear terms.

      • STRIPE says:

        Totally – I think it was good to hear a former player lay it out really cut and dry, nothing personal, not emotional or belittling. Your reasons are your reasons but those choices have consequences for your employment with this team. Point blank period.

  3. MsIam says:

    So we are just going to not mention that whole microchips from Satan worshipers thing, huh Kyrie? People need to bring that up every time this fool pops his head up. Stop giving him cover and making this out to be him engaged in some “noble cause for freedom” and call it what it is.

  4. A says:

    For ‘voiceless’ people, they sure do talk a heck of a lot

    • JayBlue says:

      Saw somewhere recently that sums it up nicely: these people are not being silenced, they are being ignored, but they are so self-obsessed they think it’s the same thing.

    • HoofRat says:

      They seriously can’t exist without an audience. When my employer announced they were considering a vaccine mandate (it’s since been instituted – YAY!), one individual wrote the single most random, unhinged letter of protest I’ve ever read, and spammed our entire thousand-employee organization. And this is supposedly an educated person! Not only are earplugs required to block out the “voiceless”, apparently we need “stoopid” blockers on our email as well.

    • BothSidesNow says:

      @ A says, and they don’t speak in normal voice, they scream non stop!! Voiceless my a$$!!

  5. mia girl says:

    I simply cannot with this “voice of the voiceless” line for the willfully unvaccinated. All I hear is their voice, screaming on tv, screaming at people in the grocery store, screaming on social media.

    I’m beyond tired of their lame excuses, hypocrisy, ignorance and defiance for the sake pissing others off. It is blatant selfishness. For those who can get the vaccine and still haven’t, do it or accept that you are taking away freedom in our society, not fighting for it.

  6. BlueSky says:

    He can’t have it both ways. You are potentially a carrier of airborne virus that has killed millions. It’s selfish. He wants to play and put others at risk. I’m so tired of these people. No if you don’t get vaccinated you accept the consequences and not whine like a little bitch.

  7. Barbie1 says:

    Sick of these mfcker’s. They are willing to spread disease and death to others. No conscious or brain cells.

  8. Neners says:

    As a Duke alum, I’m ashamed he went to my school even for a year. That’s literally all I have to say about Kyrie at this point.

  9. Lightpurple says:

    It’s not that he just can’t play in home games, the city’s mandate means he can’t practice with the team either so he would be stepping into road games with no knowledge of the plays or the rhythm of his teammates. He also wouldn’t be able to play road games in venues that have similar mandates, like against the Knicks, some of the California teams, the Celtics. So saying he could play road games just doesn’t work.

    Kyrie Irving himself lives to be a distraction and cause outrage. He has been this way for years and brings chaos and bad chemistry to every team that decides to sign him. I was angry when he came to the Celtics. I was glad to be rid of him when he jumped to the Nets and did so in a very nasty way. I bet some co-workers that Durant would finish last season without Harden and Kyrie. Some of them still owe me.

    And people need to stop comparing this flat-earther to Mohammed Ali’s stand against the Vietnam War. Ali went to prison for his belief that young Black men shouldn’t be sent to war to die or kill. Kyrie doesn’t care about anyone but Kyrie. If I have to show proof I’m vaccinated & wear a mask to enter a building to watch him play, he needs to do his part to protect everyone else in that building, including his teammates.

  10. Cait says:

    A hotep with two different baby mamas nothing to see here

  11. Case says:

    We need to stop with the “personal choice” rhetoric around vaccines. Vaccines are literally a group project. If one person in a family of five gets the vaccine, guess what? That doesn’t mean very much. Vaccines are able to do their job when MOST people who are eligible to get them do so. This guy is on a team. He should understand this.

    • Lightpurple says:

      Kyrie Irving is not a team player.

    • lemontwist says:

      Agreed. But we all know they’ve been sold on the idea that the ‘group’ who are getting vaccinated (and science) are trying to pull one over on them. They think they’re smarter because they’re in the anti-vax minority. It’s a lost cause.

  12. Nev says:

    oh geez.
    I guess he can buy an island and go there to be the voice of his cult then.

  13. lemontwist says:

    So.. in 2017 he said that people should “do their own research” and come to the conclusion that the Earth is flat? I would love to question him about how that research has progressed in the last 4 years and the methodology for his current research on vaccines.

  14. Mabs A'Mabbin says:

    Maybe a different approach is necessary. Anyone not getting vaccinated forfeits all vaccinations. And anyone not able to show proof of vaccines forfeits their right to healthcare at any and all traditional medical facilities. In other words, if a patient wants to be seen by a doctor, the right to enter waiting rooms and be seen by a variety of healthcare employees, requires that the patient be up to date. Unfortunately this would include emergency rooms as well. If a facility can turn people away for lack of insurance and/or a means to pay, they can most assuredly refuse unvaccinated persons in order to protect a greater number of lives over the one.

  15. Hollah says:

    Speaking on behalf of my NBA-loving Ohio family, F*CK THAT GUY! He was a nuisance in Cleveland, a thorn in the side of Boston and now he’s taking a giant dump on Brooklyn. Not surprised.

  16. M says:

    Yea all those kids who got to live because of the Polio vaccine sure had their freedoms restricted. These people are too dumb to live. Can we give the anti-vaxxers a group Darwin Award?

  17. Size Does Matter says:

    Ventilators cause voicelessness.

  18. eliza james says:

    He has a right to be a jackass so long as the organization and all of his sponsors stop paying his dumb ass to exist. Exile this idiot already.

  19. ME says:

    So you’d rather be unemployed and hated by a good chuck of society…oh and also risk getting and spreading a deadly virus…all because why? Has this dude every taken a Tylenol, ever had any shots in his life? Why are they so against the Covid vaccine? What do they think is the answer out of this pandemic then? F*ck him and anyone who agrees with him.

    • Minnieder says:

      @ME that’s my question as well: why is he so opposed to getting a covid vaccine? Has he had a tetanus shot? Probably so what is this defiance about?

  20. Margot says:

    This flat earther wants to talk to us about science? No. No. No.

  21. BeanieBean says:

    I don’t watch sports or sports news, I didn’t even know there was a team called the Brooklyn Nets, but that Stephen A. Smith news clip is brilliant.

  22. LW says:

    If this fool remains unvaccinated he will serve as a cautionary tale who willingly joined the ranks of the unvaccinated dead and won’t have any voice at all.
    He will be merely another statistic being mocked for his stupidity on Reddit and elsewhere.

  23. Christine says:

    I understand contracts are involved, but are teams not allowed to just drop players? Maybe something should be written into contracts in the future. It blows my mind that so many pro athletes do/say dumb stuff when there is PLENTY of talent out there willing and ready to take their place…

  24. Erika Holzhausen says:

    Celebitchy clearly doesn’t follow sports. Irving has been verh open about not being vaxxed. He is not getting paid because he cannot participate in practice or in games until he gets vaxxed

  25. Jekelly says:

    He is literally the WORST! I have friends that work in the NBA and he is awful to work with. He is not a Team player, is completely full of himself, and a total ass. I’m so glad he’s out of Boston.

  26. Coco says:

    I think it’s important to differentiate between the unvaccinated – children, the immuno-compromised, people without access to a car, people who may be in an abusive situation and fear what would happen if their abuser discovered they had received the vaccine – and people who are anti-vax. Irving is anti-vax. And for the record, the anti-vaxxers seem anything but voiceless.

  27. Stacy Dresden says:

    Stuuuuuuupiiiiiid

  28. Rice says:

    This reminds me of another sports idiot who said that he won’t get the vaccine because he “heard” that it changes your DNA. Can you imagine what you can do with a 3rd arm if you’re a basketball player? You can’t lose!

    I’m kidding, obviously! There’s no veracity to the claim that your DNA can change from the vaccine.

  29. souperkay says:

    There needs to be more shunning and shaming of antivaxxers. Vaccine mandates are not new. The Roberts SCOTUS upheld them just this summer! The ROBERTS 6-3 nutter butter SCOTUS! Vaccine technology, even this mRNA technology is not new. Multiple governments, remember that groups of countries were working together and sharing data, cannot keep a secret were the lies about vaccine safety or side effects true. VACCINES DO NOT CAUSE LONG TERM EFFECTS ESPECIALLY MRNA WHICH LEAVES YOUR BODY IN UNDER 24 HOURS!! Two people can keep a secret if one of them is dead and there aren’t a whole pile of dead epidemiologists, virologists, researchers, and doctors.

    So trying to be a representative for a group that deals in lies that will harm the global whole is stupid. Opposing vaccine mandates, especially in the United States that has the side doors of sincerely held belief and medical need, is willfully hurting the whole without purpose or a root in any truth.

    Antivaxxers, especially vaccine mandate opposers, should be shunned and shamed. They are a smoldering ember that should be denied oxygen and kindling.

    • BC says:

      I’m not sure you meant this, but I don’t think vaccine requirements are shunning or shaming for that matter. I just think they are and have been a way of life.

      At this point my idea is we have more places that require vaccines for work, fun, or any group activity with a wide array of people. In addition, as long as we have this weird and profit driven health care system say it’s okay to charge more to people who don’t get vaccinated. Then we keep working on cures and other vaccines to prevent it. The unvaccinated can not do as much things in public and that’s fine by me for now. As it’s a worldwide problem anyway it will take years to eradicate if at all.

      • souperkay says:

        I meant that all these vocal people complaining about US vaccine mandates should be shunned and shamed. Do not give them a microphone. What on Earth are they complaining about?

        All vaccine mandates for employers in the United States that want to remain SCOTUS approved have the 2 exceptions: sincerely held belief and medical exemption. Anyone who sincerely believes vaccines are deadly can go through the reasonable accommodation process at their greater than 100 employee workplace to have their voice heard. RA requests do not have to be granted if it places an undue burden on the employer through things like finding a safe working environment for someone with the potential to spread a deadly disease while protecting the medically exempt and the vaccinated employees. The process is there for all the antivaxx complainers.

        All vaccine mandates that cover public transportation and shared spaces like arenas, libraries, and restaurants do not need to include the exemptions and the enforcement of strict mandates for public shared spaces protects the medically exempt. Sincerely held believers should keep themselves home for all our sakes. Protecting the whole is more important than allowing the potential spread of a deadly disease, even SCOTUS recognizes this.

        Antivaxxers don’t have real concerns that aren’t being addressed by systems already in place so when someone like Kyrie wants to champion them, they should be shunned and shamed.

  30. Stacy Dresden says:

    Some people will believe anyone except their own doctors. Stupidity is rampant!

  31. Annetommy says:

    It is impossible to speak when one is on a ventilator so the unvaccinated may need a spokesperson. The politicisation of this vaccine is hideous. It has cost countless lives. And it is very largely down to the sociopathic former guy and his sycophantic enablers. Just awful.

  32. BC says:

    I love this headline “voice for the unvaccinated voiceless.” Voiceless? Really? Please the unvaccinated are the loudest and most voiceless people ever. They really don’t need a spokesman. Even though I 1000% disagree with the unvaccinated, I and pretty much everyone understands their issues. The one thing you can say is mass media, social media and gossip media have been letting all of us other know their ideas for a while. They are hardly voiceless.

    • Snappyfish says:

      Oh Kyrie…Kyrie “flat earth” Irving, proving that Duke doesn’t play STUDENT athletes.
      What a sad day when ignorance can elevate one to martyr. Once he realizes he can’t play at all (not just home games) we will see how devoted he is to his “beliefs”. He will not be paid why he isn’t playing.

  33. jferber says:

    He’s a dumb ass, plain and simple. He could be a great role model, but no, he chooses the side of death.

  34. Kate_NZ says:

    Really proud of fellow Kiwi Sean Marks (a basketball legend here in Aotearoa New Zealand) for taking this stand. There are anti-vaxxers here in NZ that have the same problem as Irving – they don’t understand that there are consequences to their stupid choices.

  35. Izzy says:

    Well, a lot of them are dead, on ventilators, or can’t speak for long because their lung function is now for sh**, bot OK, I guess, if that’s the ventilator-assisted hill you wanna die on.