Kyrie Irving broke his silence after three years of remaining tight-lipped about his time with the Brooklyn Nets, revealing that things escalated to his asking his release from the franchise.
The point guard was suspended by the team in 2021 after refusing to take the COVID-19 vaccine, which was ordered by New York.
“Even the people that I was in business with were pro-vaccine. And I’m like, ‘Okay look, that’s fine, just leave me the f—k out of this, let me go somewhere. I even told the Nets to release me, I said, ‘Yo, can you please just release me so I can,’ Obviously the money situation is a different situation, I’m f—king Kyrie, I say that very aware of my position, they weren’t just going to let me clock out and go somewhere,” said Irving via his most recent Twitch stream.
Kyrie affected his team’s chances
Irving’s refusal to take the COVID-19 vaccine was one of the many off-court issues he had in the same season, which significantly affected the Nets‘ chances to contend for a championship.
Back in 2021, New York Mayor Eric Adams mandated that all of the city’s professional sports teams must require their athletes to be vaccinated otherwise they won’t be allowed to represent their teams on their home court.
Since Irving didn’t want to follow suit, he missed a total of 35 games to start the season as well as roughly $380,000 per game.
The point guard’s absence then left Kevin Durant and James Harden to lead the team by themselves, which went better than expected. Still, the growing concern throughout the season was the missed time and opportunity to build much-needed chemistry and reps. Nets general manager Sean Marks knew that was the case but couldn’t really do anything about it.
“He has a choice to make, and he made his choice,” Marks said. “Again, my job here is to make what we deem as the best decision and best choices for the organization moving ahead as a whole.
They’re not always ones that are going to be met with open arms and a thumbs-up. These are hard decisions. Just like I’m sure it wasn’t easy for Kyrie either to have to make that [decision] to not be around his teammates.”
Irving wanted to stay true to his beliefs
Irving, who admitted at that time that he was neither pro-vaccine nor anti-vaccine, made the decision not to take it because he felt it was a way to stay true to his beliefs.
He didn’t like the fact that he was being required to take it because that went against his freedom to make his own decisions.
The former Nets guard wanted to take his time in deciding whether or not he was going to get vaccinated which ultimately cost him money as well as a chance to win a championship.
Kyrie returned to the court by game 36 of that season, but only participated in the Nets’ games on the road.
He played a total of 29 games and averaged 27.4 points, 5.8 assists and 4.4 rebounds in 37.6 minutes per game. Unfortunately for him and the Nets, they were eliminated as early as the first round by the Boston Celtics.
Kyrie wasn’t let go right away by the Nets but was traded to the Dallas Mavericks the following season.
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