Brooklyn Nets star guard Kyrie Irving’s aunt, Tyki Irving, says the playmaker may try to get around the NBA’s vaccination rules, calling it a “moral-based” exemption. Tyki is referring to the religious-based exemption, which Andrew Wiggins was denied.
“He is going to try to figure that out as it comes, because it’s not religious-based, it’s moral-based,” Tyki Irving told Matt Sullivan for a lengthy new piece on vaccinations in the NBA for Rolling Stone. “You may have to sit on the sideline, you might not have to be in the arena during this. If it’s that freaking important to get a vaccine that, hell, it’s still not preventing the Covid, then I’d rather them working it out that way than to say, ‘Hey, if you don’t get the vaccine, then you can’t be a part of the franchise that you f*ckin’ helped build.’”
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As Irving competes in Brooklyn, New York, in accordance with local coronavirus regulations, he may not be able to participate in home games.
Irving’s stance directly opposed NBA legend Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, who says in the same piece that “There is no room for players” who are not vaccinated. He added that teams need to remove any athletes who refuse to get the vaccine as it is a matter of public health.
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