NBA – Kyrie Irving and a new controversy around the vaccine and Covid-19: the permanent counter-current

“The last thing I wanted was to create more distractions“. When anyone tells you this, you have the right to believe it. When it’s Kyrie Irving who pronounces this sentence during a media day that he performs by videoconference and not face-to-face, you are entitled to It may be unfair and we’ve had the opportunity here before to write down why and how much he could be an easy target, but the Brooklyn Nets star can hardly deny that he’s doing everything to make his choices be called into question.

Satan’s plan

It was precisely because Bill de Blasio, the mayor of the Big Apple, made the decision that Kyrie Irving was unable to make it to the Nets media day on Monday. Could not or not wanted? The 29-year-old leader refuses to provide information on his vaccination status to this day. “I would like to keep this in the private sphere, he replied to reporters on Monday. Respect my privacy. It will all be revealed at some point when we clear it all up“. Revealed? Cleared? Irving didn’t go further in his explanation as if he was preserving some suspense. But until what?

This Rolling Stone weekend ensured that he had “liked” conspiratorial posts on Instagram. One of those assured that “secret society“implant the vaccine for”connecting black people to a large computer as part of a Satan plan“. This is not the first time that Irving has stood out on theses like this. In 2017, he assured, repeating it three times, that the earth was flat. He apologized later but his image was blurred and we cannot say that he is doing anything to change the situation.

“I know I will be there every day no matter what. That I will be there for the teammates and be one of the leaders of this team. And that I’ll be there for my family off the pitch too“He said. Not many of his former teammates or NBA watchers think Kyrie Irving is a good leader, but the debate is not there. We do not quite understand what that is. he means to be “to be“for his team-mates when, as it is, he would miss at least half of the season since he is currently unable to play home matches.

Once again, this is the character’s ambivalence. Vice-president of the players’ union, he seems to want to take up the issue against the vaccine obligation but without saying it clearly. Maybe he’s hoping to make the league falter behind the scenes? After all, his status allows him to create what he himself calls this “distraction“. “I am not present today, but that does not mean that I will set limits in the future to join the team.“, he also launched Monday echoing the words of Kevin Durant who thinks that the Nets will be complete”at a time“.

Bradley Beal does not see the point of the vaccine

So what ? Is Kyrie Irving planning to get vaccinated? Is it already while refusing to reveal it? There are many in the NBA, Karl-Anthony Towns who has lost many members of his family including his mother to Covid, in the lead, to champion the vaccine. “Every day I see new excuses for why people don’t get vaccinated, he wrote in mid-September on Twitter. You are very creative with these ‘excuses’, it’s quite funny. “By his attitude, Irving is posed in front of him without saying it out loud and without explaining the why and the how. Another unvaccinated star, Bradley Beal explained that he saw no point in it and that he mistrusted.

In recent years, the leader of the Nets has often taken the opposite view of his peers. This was true for the Orlando bubble in particular. Howard Bryant, a reporter for ESPN and others, perhaps best summed it up by echoing the words of an “important” member of the NBA: “Kyrie Irving is a man against the tide … without a cause“. And this is why it appears difficult to decipher and therefore less and less credible.