It’s possible that Nets guard Kyrie Irving will make his only appearance of the season at the All-Star Game, writes Brian Lewis of The New York Post. Irving appears ready to sit out the entire year rather than comply with a New York City vaccine mandate that requires him to get the shot before he can play in his home arena. However, there’s no mandate in Cleveland, which will host the February 20 game, so there’s nothing to stop Irving from playing if fans vote him onto the team.
The revised NBA All-Star ballot lists all active players, which includes Irving, who is still on the Nets’ roster even though he’s currently unlikely to play. Lewis notes that Irving has a lot of fan support with more than 4.3 million followers on Twitter and 15.5 million on Instagram. He may also get a lot of votes from people looking to make a political statement in opposition to vaccine mandates.
Fan balloting will make up 50% of the final vote this year, with the rest split between the media and the players. Lewis considers it unlikely that the league would prevent Irving from participating in the game if he does get voted in.
There’s more from the Atlantic Division:
- Celtics coach Ime Udoka clarified reports of a players-only meeting that his team had before Wednesday’s game in Orlando, per Jared Weiss of The Athletic. Udoka said the gathering, which came in the wake of complaints by Marcus Smart that Jayson Tatum and Jaylen Brown aren’t passing the ball enough, was less dramatic that the media made it seem. “It wasn’t really a players-only meeting,” Udoka said. “We had a team dinner scheduled way before anything happened, so that was planned for some weeks now. And we gave the players their time before the coaching staff and everybody else came down. So they had about 30 minutes on their own, but it wasn’t anything scheduled. It wasn’t anything scheduled by them.”
- Celtics swingman Josh Richardson is back in the lineup tonight after missing Thursday’s game with a left foot contusion, tweets Gary Washburn of The Boston Globe. Richardson underwent an X-ray on the foot to make sure there’s no structural damage, Weiss reports in a separate story. It’s welcome news for Boston, which could be without Brown for several games.
- The longer the Sixers‘ battle with Ben Simmons continues, the less likely it becomes that either side will get what it wants, contends Mike Sielski of The Philadelphia Inquirer. The team began fining Simmons again this week and plans to continue until he cooperates with team doctors about his mental health treatments.
So now the anti-vaxxers are going to vote Kyrie into the All-Star Game? Unreal.
That’s probably a pretty safe bet and even one more reason to not watch as if there wasn’t enough already
Honestly, part of me would like to see it just for the absurdity of it all and Kyrie getting vehemently booed in such a setting. Needless to say, the other part of me would prefer that spot go to a deserving player.
Of course, it’s a moot point because there’s a 0% chance that happens, though it’s no surprise NYP would post such a trash piece.
You’re right about that, the NY Post just is a glorified tabloid.
Some of us are not anti vaccine (I got mine and get my booster Monday), but rather anti mandate! I don’t even like Kyrie but he will get my vote
Same
Vaccines do not work well without such mandates; this pandemic has made that pretty clear. What happens when a REAL virus comes along and we let vaccine mandates get in the way of protecting the human population? We were lucky this time.
If you’re assuming that the anti-vaxxers will come around when things would get real dicey, think again. The same unscrupulous individuals and companies profiting from vaccine misinformation will be at it again the next time, and many ignorant citizens will once again get fooled in the process. What happens then? If we would have them then, we should have them now. The approach needs to be consistent, well-researched, and proven to be 99.9% safe. All of those boxes were checked this time.
This would all be a very different story if many of the folks whining about freedom and personal responsibility—not saying you, just in general—actually followed through with that, but it’s often nothing more than empty talk. We got into this mess in the first place because many of those same folks didn’t do the right thing when the virus was getting off the ground, hiding behind partisan politics or simply not caring enough to be inconvenienced or pretending to care about local businesses being shut down, as if helping the virus to spread wasn’t going to impact them.
Life is a series of trade-offs and absolute freedom does not exist, nor has it ever existed, nor will it ever exist.
Tl;dr: I don’t believe in Americans doing the right thing enough to think we could do away without mandates. I wish I could; other societies prove it can be done. If only we lived in a world free of misinformation/enough people falling for misinformation.
I overheard 5 people at a truck stop in rust belt america who said exactly the same thing.
Or is it the hopeful musings of someone writing for a tabloid newspaper? Do followers = votes? Would anti-vaxxers really used a player to support their cause (now the author’s given them an organizing point at least). Wasn’t this the same paper that tried to drum up a panic about police officers that would walk away from a mandate and gave a platform for the fringe? Disappointing a bit that this site would give the reporting some cover by just relaying it without some context.
Ah yes, the social contract. The power given to government to create laws (or in this case, unwritten conditions to freedom) under the guise of protecting the public. Key word in there is “power”; something governments (good or bad) have operated on and will keep and expand whenever and wherever possible no matter the cost.
In other words, invoking measures of fear, manipulation and compliance in the name of “the greater good” (a term deep rooted in Marxism by the way)
Sorry, not buying it
With the current voting system, it is virtually impossible that Irving plays in the All-Star game. Even if he were the most voted player among fans, he won’t get anything from media or players.
I would hope Kyrie would have enough sense to decline playing in the all-star game if that scenario, as unlikely as it is, happened.
Why would he show any sense about anything? He thinks the world is flat because he hasn’t ever seen the curvature himself. I mean seriously he’s intelligent enough to have unique thoughts and so otherwise completely uneducated and obtuse to believe in any thought his intellect scrabbles together.
Irving can only be fined for the home games he misses. He’ll still make 16+ million for the road games whether he plays or not. Not sure why that is, but I think it would be pretty easy to be an anti vax “leader” if you get $16m regardless
Because he is available and willing to play. So this is the equivalent of DNP coaches decision. They still get paid in this scenario
This is where the Commissioner needs to put his foot down on this and rule Kyrie out of the game. No more signs of weakness from Silver
What did Kyrie do wrong outside of wanting to decide what goes into his body?
Silver won’t let it happen. You don’t want the All Star game to become a circus. This can only be media driven. Not going to play if you don’t play season games.
…………………………………….
So the longer this goes on the less both sides will get. Wow I was hoping for FOUR yrs Moreyon. Just a total incompetent mess. Again why wouldn’t you move him at draft. When his value was greatest. Kings trade is only thing that will save this.
I got real Atlantic Notes ———
Knicks 113 —— Bucks 98 Woo Hoo
Nice win. Randle 32 pts, 12 reb, 4 ast
Giannis 25 pts, 7 reb, 4 ast
Two games I’m most looking forward to. Hawks in Atlanta. And Nets in Bklyn … We Coming
11/27 @ State Farm Arena 6:30 PM
11/30 @ Barclays Center 6:30 PM
Calm down, Knicks ain’t winning ish.
#LetKyriePlay
#FreeBenSimmons
That would be awesome if Kyrie got in the All-Star Game… definitely a bright spot on what has been otherwise a dreadfully horrible season so far, players are so below their usual level, like everyone, I mean such disappointing season so far!
Then stop watching? You won’t though
Well, if he isn’t going to play then there’s no reason to vote for him to be an All-Star.