Figurehead of the “antivax” of the NBA, Kyrie Irving is now warned. Each missed match will lead to a decrease in his salary.
Even if it still refuses to advocate compulsory vaccination for its players (only referees and team staff members are concerned), the NBA will take some measures vis-à-vis the Covid-19, to encourage the last refractory to undergo their injection.
While 90% of players in the League are already vaccinated, the NBA has decided to impose differentiated measures for non-vaccinated players, very restrictive, which should convince a good part of the skeptics. Additionally, ESPN confirms that the NBA will deprive players who miss matches because they are not vaccinated.
As a reminder, the cities of San Francisco and New York have decided to prohibit access to the rooms to unvaccinated people, and no exceptions will be made for players. Thus, players of the Golden State Warriors, New York Knicks and Brooklyn Nets who have not received their injection will miss half of their team’s matches… and therefore lose half of their salary.
Irving and conspiracy theories
If other players have expressed their opposition to the vaccination (Andrew Wiggins, Bradley Beal, Jonathan Isaac…), the most famous of them is Kyrie Irving, LeBron James’ former lieutenant in Cleveland. Now in Brooklyn, where he forms an exceptional trio with Kevin Durant and James Harden, the American playmaker could therefore miss all the Nets matches at the Barclays Center, and thus lose half of his salary (34.9 million euros). dollars), or $ 17.5 million.
For such a sum, will he change his mind? It is far from certain because Irving is a follower of conspiracy theories. After long championing the idea that the earth was flat, the player recently followed on social media and relayed posts from a conspiracy theorist who believes that “Secret Societies Plant Vaccine to Connect Black People to Large Computer as Part of Satan’s Plan”. It is hard to see him change his mind so suddenly …
? #NBA
? Kyrie Irving and the conspiracy theory …#NBAextra pic.twitter.com/aTVSxXVEj7— NBAextra (@NBAextra) September 28, 2021
