{"id":143850,"date":"2021-10-13T21:41:16","date_gmt":"2021-10-13T21:41:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/?p=143850"},"modified":"2021-10-13T22:58:43","modified_gmt":"2021-10-13T22:58:43","slug":"24m-vaccine-conspiracy-bleeds-nba-superstar","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/?p=143850","title":{"rendered":"$24m vaccine 'conspiracy' bleeds NBA superstar"},"content":{"rendered":"

It\u2019s hard to know where Kyrie Irving<\/a> is getting his vaccination information. Hope it\u2019s not the same sources that had him convinced for a while the Earth was flat.<\/p>\n

True story.<\/p>\n

So maybe it wasn\u2019t much of a surprise this week when science tripped up the seven-time All-Star again. Hemmed in by a New York City COVID-19 vaccine mandate that covers pro athletes and would have limited Irving to playing road games only, the Brooklyn Nets gave him an ultimatum: a.) get the shot or b.) take the 2021-22 season off.<\/p>\n

The argument for a.) is pretty straightforward. The Nets are paying Irving $34 million ($46 million AUD) per year to blend with Kevin Durant and James Harden<\/a> \u2014 two of the best players in the game \u2014 and maybe deliver an NBA title to Brooklyn. But b.) is not bad, either.<\/p>\n

Irving<\/a> can stay glued to his couch and still collect a cool $16 million ($21 million AUD) or so. That\u2019s because Nets general manager Sean Marks and owner Joe Tsai, who together decided the \u201chalf-a-loaf\u201d approach wasn\u2019t worth the disruption, said Irving would be paid for road games where he would have been eligible to play.<\/p>\n

\"KD<\/p>\n

\u201cWill there be pushback from Kyrie and his camp?\u201d Marks said at a news conference. \u201cI\u2019m sure that this is not a decision that they like. \u2026 But again, this is a choice that Kyrie had, and he was well aware of that.\u201d<\/p>\n

Irving has ducked questions about whether he was vaccinated, saying three weeks ago in a Zoom interview with reporters, \u201cI think I just would love to just keep that private, handle it the right way with my team and go forward together with the plan.\u201d<\/p>\n

Whatever that plan is, Marks made clear that Irving, a vice president of the NBA Players Association, was not among the 96 per cent of players the union said had taken the jab. \u201cIf he was vaccinated,\u201d Marks said, \u201cwe wouldn\u2019t be having this discussion.\u201d<\/p>\n

How much more they talk remains to be seen. It\u2019s worth noting the NBA was the first major sports league to pull the plug on its season when the pandemic began raging in March 2020, just hours after Commissioner Adam Silver got word that Utah Jazz star Rudy Gobert had tested positive for COVID-19. It was also the only league to devise a single \u201cbubble\u201d to resume games and among the first to let some fans back in the stands. The people in charge aren\u2019t likely to start bending the rules now.<\/p>\n

Irving is an engaging, curious 29-year-old who does a lot of charity work behind the scenes, but he\u2019s got a contrarian\u2019s streak a mile long. He fought the league over the bubble setup and then skipped out on the Nets a few times last season, citing \u201cpersonal reasons\u201d only to be caught partying. He\u2019s dabbled in conspiracy theories before, too, most famously with his \u201cearth is flat\u201d pronouncement during a 2017 podcast interview.<\/p>\n

\"Australian-born<\/p>\n

Then, just as now, Irving was coy about who he listened to on the topic and encouraged people to \u201cdo their own research.\u201d But he\u2019s no more qualified to pass judgment on the validity on the vaccine studies than one of those researchers would be running a fast break in the closing minutes of a big game.<\/p>\n

Speaking of big, more than a few former NBA greats have joined the campaign to persuade not just Irving, but the few remaining holdouts, to get the vaccine. Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, Charles Barkley and Shaquille O\u2019Neal, among others, have framed it as a responsibility to teammates, and Michael Jordan, now the owner of the Charlotte Hornets, declared himself \u201cin unison with the league, a firm believer in science.\u201d<\/p>\n

Wherever else Irving is looking for advice, he\u2019d better finish up soon. His kind of talent doesn\u2019t come along often, and the chance to play alongside Durant and Harden and add another NBA title to the one he claimed in Cleveland might not last for long.<\/p>\n

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Right now, Irving is staying mostly silent, perhaps remembering the sting he felt after the flat-Earth episode. He tried laughing it off, then repeated it in an interview months later with The New York Times, and laughed it off a second time before finally apologizing.<\/p>\n

\u201cTo all the science teachers, everybody come up to me \u2026 I\u2019m sorry,\u201d he said. \u201cI apologise. I apologise.\u201d<\/p>\n

Silver \u2014 who like Irving went to Duke \u2014 took a light-hearted approach to the whole matter back then.<\/p>\n

\u201cKyrie and I went to the same college,\u201d he said at the time. \u201cHe may have taken some different courses.\u201d<\/p>\n

This time, watching one of the game\u2019s most popular players threatening to bench himself over an almost-as-misguided understanding of science, the commissioner isn\u2019t quite so amused.<\/p>\n

For a daily dose of the best of the breaking news and exclusive content from Wide World of Sports, subscribe to our newsletter by<\/em><\/strong>\u00a0clicking here!<\/em><\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

It\u2019s hard to know where Kyrie Irving is getting his vaccination information. Hope it\u2019s not the same sources that had him convinced for a while […]<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/143850"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=143850"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/143850\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":143852,"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/143850\/revisions\/143852"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=143850"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=143850"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=143850"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}