Report: vaccine-resistant Nets' star Irving apparently runs afoul of NYC rule. Will he have to miss home games?

Tomorrow is the Brooklyn Nets' media day, the start of an odds-on path to a NBA championship for a team with three superstars--Kevin Durant, Kyrie Irving, and James Harden--and a strong supporting cast.

But it may be marred by a bombshell report published last night by Rollling Stone, The NBA’s Anti-Vaxxers Are Trying to Push Around the League—And It’s Working. 

Matt Sullivan reports that Irving is unvaccinated, which should run afoul of a New York City rule requiring pro athletes to show proof of vaccination, and that Irving, no stranger to conspiracy theories, is very much anti-vax.

Inside the NBA's vaccine civil war: Will Kyrie skip home games? Has the league caved to players? Does one player even get how masks work? And what's with that Moderna conspiracy theory in locker rooms?

Spoke to players+execs+docs+Kareem for @RollingStone: https://t.co/NMbaygxQcz pic.twitter.com/Qzbf7hX42q

— Matt Sullivan (@sullduggery) September 26, 2021

Sullivan in June published a fascinating book centered on the 2019-2020 NBA season, Can’t Knock the Hustle: Inside the Season of Protest, Pandemic, and Progress with the Brooklyn Nets’ Superstars of Tomorrow, about which I'll write more shortly.

In Rulling Stone, Sullivan describes successful resistance from the NBA players' union to a league vaccination mandate, which nonetheless runs up against vax rules in New York City and San Francisco--and the league has already denied the Golden State Warriors' Andrew Wiggins a religious exemption.

So only about 90% of NBA players are vaccinated.

Kyrie resists

On Irving, Sullivan writes:

When asked directly about Irving’s vaccination status — or his plans to change it — multiple people familiar with his thinking declined to answer directly. But one confidant and family member floated to Rolling Stone the idea of anti-vaxx players skipping home games to dodge the New York City ordinance… or at least threatening to protest them, until the NBA changes its ways.

“There are so many other players outside of him who are opting out, I would like to think they would make a way,” says Kyrie’s aunt, Tyki Irving, who runs the seven-time All-Star’s family foundation and is one of the few people in his regular circle of advisors. “It could be like every third game. So it still gives you a full season of being interactive and being on the court, but with the limitations that they’re, of course, oppressing upon you. There can be some sort of formula where the NBA and the players can come to some sort of agreement.”

This would come to a head at the Nets' first pre-season home game on October 8. Meanwhile, let's see what GM Sean Marks and the players say tomorrow.

The big picture

And Sullivan found NBA legend Kareem Abdul-Jabbar to admonish the players for "their arrogance at disbelieving immunology and other medical experts" and for "failing to live up to the responsibilities that come with celebrity."

Meanwhile, the league seems supine:

No player will be forced to undergo off-day testing, league sources confirmed, despite the NBA suggesting it in earlier guidance. Socially-distanced travel is now “suggested.” Players who aren’t fully vaxxed and seek outside labs for regular testing must get league approval, but their tests will otherwise be supervised by their teams — the kind of states-rights amalgam of governance preferred by players.