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Kyrie Irving made even more headlines off the court than on it this past season for the Brooklyn Nets. The mercurial point guard was the face of the polarizing vaccine mandate that barred players from setting foot on the court.
The Nets eventually allowed Kyrie Irving to return for road games despite still being banned in his home arena up until the latter portion of the season. Irving didn't play his first game up until the turn of the calendar year and finished with just 29 total for the year.
Irving has not been bashful opening up about his firm stance on the vaccine all year. That didn't change in his recent appearance on Kevin Durant's The ETCs podcast where the Nets guard used the word “martyr”.
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Via Brian Lewis of The New York Post:
“I was not expecting a mandate to be brought down in a way where it wasn’t going to let me play at all,” Irving told Gonzalez. “I had the opportunity to play away games still but there was no plan in place, there was no vision of how it was going to work for our team. And I think that not only impacted not just me, but a lot of people. Just had to sit in that hot seat for a little bit and deal with it. The life of a martyr, bro.”
More likely than not, the Brooklyn Nets won't have to worry about any vaccine mandate hampering their on-court play *knocks on wood*. Hopefully this is the last we'll have to hear about it, from Kyrie Irving or any other NBA star.
