Apparently, it’s not only Kyrie Irving who was hesitant to take a COVID-19 shot within the Brooklyn Nets lineup last season.
Per New York Post’s Brian Lewis and Josh Kosman, there were several players inside the mentioned team that had no interest in taking the vaccine shot. Eventually, they decided to receive it, unlike Irving — who gained notoriety and further public attention in the league landscape.
Lewis and Kosman also noted that the transitionings and handling of New York City’s vaccine mandate – which required people to get vaccinated in order to play within Barclays Center and Madison Square Garden — may have left a sour impression amongst Nets cagers.
Irving’s dramatic unavailability issues and vaccine skepticism has perhaps costed the Nets’ 2021-2022 season, as they ultimately fell from being a championship contender into an embattled club entering the last playoffs. As the conference’s seventh seed, they were trampled by eventual East champion Boston Celtics via four-game sweep.
Who knows what could have happened in a worse way possible, but Brooklyn may seem to have ended in a much more miserable position if other impactful players within their lineup didn’t take a medical jab last campaign.
For now, both Nets and Irving are having an ongoing standoff regarding their status and potential parting ways soon.
