Unvaccinated Kyrie Irving steps into locker room, team gets fined $50K
Brooklyn Nets All-Star point guard Kyrie Irving triggered a $50,000 fine for his team on Monday for stepping into his own team’s locker room while unvaccinated.
Irving attended Sunday’s game between the Nets and the New York Knicks as a fan, being forbidden from participating in the game due to his vaccination status.
“The Brooklyn Nets organization has been fined $50,000 for violating local New York City law and league health and safety protocols during the team’s March 13th game against the New York Knicks at Barclays Center, the NBA announced today,” said NBA communications in a statement. “The violation occurred when the Nets permitted Kyrie Irving, who was in attendance at the game, to enter the team’s locker room.”
As reported by Frontline News earlier this month, New York City Mayor Eric Adams finally lifted the city’s public-sector vaccine and mask mandates on March 7th, except for 2-5 year olds who remain under a mask mandate.
In a CNBC interview earlier this month, Adams defended his decision to keep Irving off the court, saying that it’s about following the rules.
“It would send the wrong message just to have an exception for one player when we’re telling countless number of New York City employees, ‘If you don’t follow the rules, you won’t be able to be employed.'”
Irving’s teammate and NBA star Kevin Durant slammed Adams for the fine imposed on the team, pointing out that there are already unvaccinated people allowed in the stadium.
“It’s ridiculous,” Durant said, according to ESPN. “I don’t understand it at all. There’s a few people in our arena that’s unvaxxed, right? They lifted all of that in our arena, right? So I don’t get it … I don’t get it. It just feels like at this point now, somebody’s trying to make a statement or a point to flex their authority. But everybody out here is looking for attention and that’s what I feel like the mayor wants right now, is some attention. But he’ll figure it out soon. He better.”
“But it just didn’t make any sense,” Durant continued. “There’s unvaxxed people in this building already. We got a guy who can come in the building, I guess, are they fearing our safety? I don’t get it. We’re all confused. Pretty much everybody in the world is confused at this point. Early on in the season people didn’t understand what was going on, but now it just looks stupid. So hopefully, Eric, you got to figure this out.”
Even woke progressive Trevor Noah, host of The Daily Show, weighed in on the nonsensical mandate on Monday.
“So Kyrie can go inside, not wear a mask, even hug a teammate but he can not play," Noah said on his show. "I don’t get it, why? Does the ball have a weak immune system, what is going on? I mean, it’s crazy. Just think about it, Kyrie can’t play but he can sit in the stands, right, like a fan. And then as a fan, what happens if he gets picked to take the half-court shot to win the car? Can he do that? What are those rules, how does that work?”
“Yeah, guys, I don’t care like how COVID compliant you are, shit like this makes zero sense, can we agree on this?” Noah added.
NBA Commissioner Adam Silver echoed a similar sentiment in February, even as he urged Irving to get vaccinated.
“This law in New York, the oddity of it to me is that it only applies to home players,” Silver said, according to ABC News. “I think if ultimately that rule is about protecting people who are in the arena, it just doesn’t quite make sense to me that an away player who is unvaccinated can play in Barclays but the home player can’t. To me, that’s a reason they should take a look at that ordinance.”
Irving has been making headlines since last year for his steadfast resistance to the vaccine mandate despite overwhelming pressure, which forbids him from playing in home games.
“I’m not bringing science into the basketball,” Irving told the New York Post. “Everyone’s feeling what’s going on in the real world. I’m walking around as an unvaccinated person. I’ve already been separated into another group of community. I’m just saying to everybody, I’m human. I have decisions to make, I have a family to take care of.”
“There are things that are just as important to me as being great at the game of basketball or leaving a legacy,” he added.
