The Brooklyn Nets started the 2021-22 NBA season as the odds-on-favorite to win the 2022 NBA Championship. However, the season has not gone as planned for them. They lost star player James Harden after he forced his way to Philadelphia to play with Joel Embiid, mainly because of the uncertain availability of Kyrie Irving.
New York City has a vaccine mandate that requires Irving to be vaccinated in order to play for the Brooklyn Nets in the Barclays Center. This mandate was the main reason Harden left the team as he carried the load during Durant’s injuries earlier this season with Irving unable to play.
With the vaccine mandate still holding Irving back and Ben Simmons struggling with a back injury, Durant has found himself in the spot that caused Harden to leave. Durant has been asked about Irving’s vaccination status a lot and he explained his conversations with Kyrie about the same.
“Me and Kyrie had conversations about the vaccine and what it meant to him, meant to me. At the end of the day, I didn’t think it was my decision on what he wanted to do with the vaccine. I gave him how I felt about it and we talked about it, but that’s ultimately his decision.”
Durant being a respectful teammate and not pressuring Irving into a vaccine he is uncomfortable with makes sense. With various other states lifting vaccine mandates, the hope in Brooklyn is that New York does the same, something Durant made explicitly clear to NYC Mayor Eric Adams.
The Nets are currently the eighth seed in the East and look to be locked into the play-in unless they can make a strong stand in the last month of the season and hope to leapfrog the Cleveland Cavaliers and the Toronto Raptors for the sixth seed.
