The Brooklyn Nets headed to Ohio to battle Darius Garland and the Cleveland Cavaliers on Martin Luther King Jr. Day. It would be the first full game they would play without their superstar Kevin Durant since he sprained his MCL during the home win versus the New Orleans Pelicans. Since this one was not in Brooklyn, they would have Kyrie Irving available to take on his former team. James Harden was available as well.
The Nets did not win the contest, falling to the Cavs 114-107. But with Durant set to miss an expected 4-6 weeks, and Irving only now available as a part-time player, the question had to be asked: will Irving change his stance on being vaccinated now that the Nets need him more than ever?
“Our time's coming. It's coming,” said Irving after the game. “It may not be now but I definitely feel like some some of these things that happen are for a reason and it's for a bigger purpose and we'll see what happens.”
Irving had a game-high 27, to go with seven rebounds and nine assists. However, it wasn't enough to beat the team that drafted him. He may be more fresh than the rest of the Nets, but he's also perhaps not in a mid-season rhythm, still acclimating to the grind. This was just his fourth full game back since reintegration. The team is 2-2 in those games he has appeared in.
But will Irving reconsider getting the vaccine, which would make him eligible to play in all of the games, now that Durant will miss at least a month?
“What I'm trying to better articulate is I'm not bringing science into the basketball game,” admitted Irving. “Everyone's feeling what's going on in the real world. I'm walking around as an unvaccinated person, sort of saying I've already been separated into another group of the community now 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, so I think to answer your question, it's just the reality of where the world is in the present state, you see there are more boosters, and there are people getting fired for being unvaccinated. We're all dealing with it, we're all feeling it.”
Irving missed the first couple months of the season, but the Nets made the decision to bring him back in a part-time role before Christmas.
The veteran guard clearly separates the game of basketball from his choice about vaccinations. He doesn't feel more of a need to take the jab now that Durant is out. In his mind, these are clearly different themes. He talked about spending most of his life away from a basketball court.
“My message has always been I respect what everyone else is doing with their bodies, I respect what everyone else is doing in terms of their livelihoods, and I'm here to support. But what's going on with me is I'm taking it one day at a time, that's it. Nothing is guaranteed in this world right now, so people are getting sick left and right. For me, I'm just trying to be a person that's being a beacon of hope and light and just trying to shed as much as I can on the situation without talking myself up into more….” the 2016 NBA champion added
Kyrie Irving says the Nets' injury situation won't change his vaccination status:
"I've made my decision already and I'm standing on it." pic.twitter.com/WtFO3FrXF2
— Nets Videos (@SNYNets) January 17, 2022
“I just don't want to bring science into this and it always gets wrapped up into I'm asked questions all the time about ‘what's my status' and I'm like man if you were in my position it would be easy for someone to say well ‘why don't you just get vaccinated' but you're not. And that's just the reality of it and I've made my decision already and I'm standing on it.”
So it sounds like Irving made his decision and is sticking to it. Nothing that happens to the Nets figures to dramatically alter his calculus. He mentioned how Durant would heal and his choice isn't related to a temporary knee injury even to a close friend.
"Kev's gonna heal. Kev's gonna be OK. And we're gonna have to deal with that as his teammates. But in terms of where I am with my life outside of this I stay rooted in my decision and that's just what it is. It's not gonna be swayed just because of one thing…."
-Kyrie Irving
— DaveEarly (@DavidEarly) January 17, 2022
“Kev's gonna heal. Kev's gonna be OK. And we're gonna have to deal with that as his teammates,” said Irving. “But in terms of where I am with my life outside of this I stay rooted in my decision and that's just what it is. It's not gonna be swayed just because of one thing in this NBA life that somehow it's brought to my attention as being more important than what's going on in the real world.”
So that's pretty clear. Kyrie Irving made his decision and he didn't rule out that decision changing one day. But it's not going to be influenced by the things he considers basketball-related like an MCL sprain to Kevin Durant.
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