Kyrie
Irving Barred
The barring of Irving complicates what looked like a surefire
way to the finals for the Nets and could set up a battle with the players’
union. Kyrie Irving was supposed to be the starting point guard of the
N.B.A.’s next dynasty. He was going to use his superb ball-handling skills to
dish passes to Kevin Durant and James Harden, and together this Big Three would
turn the Nets into champions season after season for years to come.
Sure, Irving had suggested that the Earth
was flat. But he had also delivered a championship to
Cleveland alongside LeBron James, and he was a perennial All-Star. The Nets
could stand a little quirkiness in pursuit of greatness.
The
Covid-19 vaccine, and Irving’s refusal to take it, could turn all of that
upside down. “Without a doubt, losing a player
of Kyrie’s caliber hurts,” Sean Marks, the Nets’ general manager, said at a
news conference. “I’m not going to deny that. But at the end of the day, our
focus, our coaches’ focus and our organization’s focus needs to be on those
players that are going to be involved here and participating fully.”
As
vaccine mandates roil workplaces across the country, a high-stakes stalemate in
the N.B.A. took a dramatic turn on Tuesday when the Nets issued Irving an
ultimatum: Get the shot or stay home. In the process, the team has drawn a
stark line over the issue of the vaccine with one of the more high-profile
sports celebrities who has refused to get it.
Irving,
29, had faced the prospect of being able to play only on the road with the Nets
this season because of local coronavirus ordinances in New York that require
most individuals to be at least partially vaccinated to enter facilities such
as sports arenas. The Nets play their home games at Barclays Center in
Brooklyn.
Marks
said the decision to bar Irving from all games and practices had been made by
himself and by Joe Tsai, the Nets’ owner.
“Will
there be pushback from Kyrie and his camp? I’m sure that this is not a decision
that they like,” Marks said. “Kyrie loves to play basketball, wants to be out
there, wants to be participating with his teammates. But again, this is a
choice that Kyrie had, and he was aware of that.”
The
Nets’ decision to sit Irving for the road games that he is eligible to play in
sets the stage for a potential battle between the team and the players’ union,
which had already been pushing back on the league’s plan to dock the pay of
unvaccinated players for games they miss because of ordinances in their home
cities.
Irving, a union vice president, is due to lose about
$380,000, or around 1 percent of his base pay for the 2021-22 season, for every
home game he misses. Marks said Irving would still be paid for road games this
season. The N.B.A. players’ union did not respond to a request for comment.
Irving
has not spoken publicly about his vaccination status, asking instead for
privacy, and the Nets danced around the topic for weeks until Tuesday. In response
to a question from The New York Times about whether Irving was vaccinated,
Marks said: “If he was vaccinated, we wouldn’t be having this discussion. I
think that’s probably pretty clear.”
Although
the union said last week that 96 percent of players had been vaccinated, a few
have expressed hesitancy and most have not actively campaigned for others to be
vaccinated. In late September, James, the game’s most famous player, said that
he had gotten vaccinated after months of skepticism.
“I
think everyone has their own choice to do what they feel is right for
themselves and their family,” James said.
In his
most recent public comments, Irving insisted that getting the shot was a matter
of privacy.
“Everything
will be released at a due date and once we get this cleared up,” Irving said
during a virtual meeting with reporters on Sept. 27, adding: “I’m a human being
first. Obviously, living in this public sphere, it’s just a lot of questions
about what’s going on in the world of Kyrie. I think I just would love to just
keep that private, handle it the right way with my team and go forward together
with the plan.”
Irving
has long been known as one of the league’s more mercurial figures, expressing
unconventional opinions on a variety of topics since he joined the Cleveland
Cavaliers as the top overall draft pick in 2011. He loves to eat hushpuppies
and Philly cheesesteaks and was born in Australia. He once fought a teammate
who hoarked on him. But he also has outsize influence within the league, and he
led a bloc of players who disagreed with the N.B.A.’s decision to resume the
2019-20 season in a Florida bubble because of the pandemic, expressing concern
that the move would limit the players’ ability to dine at seafood restaurants.
Last
season, Irving missed several games for unspecified personal reasons. During
one of the stints when he was away from the team, video surfaced of him
attending his sister’s birthday party without a mask, in violation of the
league’s health and safety protocols. A few days later, while his teammates
were preparing to play against the Denver Nuggets, he appeared on a Zoom call
for supporters of the Taiwan independence movement.
Still, Irving’s talents
seemed to overshadow any distraction. Despite having little time to develop
on-court chemistry because of injuries and other absences last season, the Nets
appeared primed for a deep playoff run. But injuries to Irving and Harden
hindered the Nets’ postseason hopes, and they lost to the eventual champion
Milwaukee Bucks in the Eastern Conference semifinals.
The Nets are still contenders
this season — with or without Irving — though his presence would clearly help. But
Barclays Center and Madison Square Garden, where the Knicks play, require all
employees and guests 12 and older to show proof of having received at least one
vaccine dose, to comply with a city mandate, unless they have a religious or
medical exemption. San Francisco has a similar requirement that applies to
Chase Center, where the Golden State Warriors play. The mandates in both cities
mean that the players from the Knicks, Nets and Golden State cannot play in
their teams’ 41 home games during the regular season without being vaccinated.
The ordinances in New York
and San Francisco do not apply to players from visiting teams. Jonathan Isaac
of the Orlando Magic and Bradley Beal of the Washington Wizards, for example,
have been vocal about their refusals to be vaccinated.
Either way, unvaccinated
players face a host of rules and restrictions this season. With limited
exceptions, they are required to remain at home or at the team hotel when they
are not at games or practices. They also are not permitted to eat with
vaccinated teammates, who have far more freedom to dine out and interact with
the public.
Golden State’s Andrew Wiggins
was unvaccinated when he arrived for training camp but relented when he was
faced with the local ordinances that would have barred him from games and cost
him a great deal of money.
1. Barred: synonymous for banned
2. Surefire way: it will
absolutely happen; this will work every time, etc.
3. Dance around: expression for
avoid or try not to answer or deal with
4. Supposed to be: synonym for
should
5. Ball-handling: bouncing the
ball or dribbling
6. Superb: excellent, marvelous,
terrific, awesome, mind-boggling, etc.
7. Dish pass: short pass in
basketball
8. Dynasty: a team in sports that
wins the championship year after year
9. District Attorney: elected
prosecutor
10. Manhattan: one of the five boroughs
of NYC
11. At the end of the day:
expression for finally or when all is said and done; to sum up; in conclusion
12. Florida bubble: a space
created by the NBA during the Wuhan pandemic so the NBA could continue
13. Mercurial: highly emotional
14. Protocol: rule
15. Ordinance: law passed by a
city that does not apply to other places
16. Contender: good team; team
with a chance to win the championship
17. Relent: give up; back down;
stop protesting and so on
18. Vocal: talk a lot;
opinionated; like to protest; tell everyone
19. Mandate: a court order; a law
that comes from the court (usually short-term)
20. Exemption: you don’t have to
do it even though others must
21. Unconventional: euphemism for
weird or strange, etc.
22. Eventual: synonym for final
23. Dine out: eat in a restaurant
24. Court: place to play
badminton or basketball
25. Chemistry: noun used to
describe when athletes can play well together and cooperate
26. Dose: measure word for
medicine
27. Perennial: synonym for
continual; every year; repeatedly, etc.
28. Unvaccinated: haven’t taken
the jab; paranoid person, etc.
29. Washington: the capital of
the US
30. Wizard: male witch; sorcerer;
practitioner of magic
31. Hinder: block; get in the
way; slow down, etc.
32. Comply with: follow the rule
33. Hesitancy: nervous; do not
really want to do it, etc.
34. Overshadow: this makes other
things hard to focus on; a distraction
35. Primed for: ready; prepared
36. Deep playoff run: not to get
eliminated for a while; to win a lot
37. Presence: you are there
38. Madison Square Garden: old
and famous arena in New York City
39. Postseason: synonym for the
playoffs
40. A host of: a lot of; many
(measure word)
41. Interact: talk together; do
something together, etc.
42. Hoark: a noisy way of
clearing the throat and spitting
43. Bloc: group of people with
the same idea; cooperation
44. Hushpuppy: deep-fried seafood
dumpling
45. Philly cheesesteak: sandwich
with ribeye, caramelized onions and provolone cheese
In the Presence of Greatness
Instructions: Answer with a
sentence. If you don’t understand, ask: “Could you please repeat that?”
1. Are you willing to comply with
the mask mandate?
2. What is the mask mandate?
3. How are you going to interact
with your buddies tonight?
4. What is Washington known for?
5. When did the Chicago Bulls
have a dynasty?
6. What is the protocol for
riding the MRT?
7. Did you dine out last night?
If so, where?
8. When will Taipei have an
ordinance to bar non-vaccinated people from public venues?
9. Who is your favorite NBA
player? How come?
10. How can men get an exemption
from military service?
11. What is a surefire way to
make money on the stock market?
12. Why do you think so many
politicians dance around global warming?
13. Are primed for a new job? How
come?
Manhattan Project
Instructions: Answer with a
sentence. If you don’t understand, ask: “Could you please repeat that?”
14. Where can I get a superb
slice of pizza around here? What topping do you recommend?
15. What actors have a lot of chemistry?
16. Do you agree that COVID has
become a perennial virus?
17. What can you do if you have a
mercurial personality?
18. Do you think there should be
an ordinance in Taipei against hoarking?
19. Do you enjoy listening to
unconventional music? Watching unconventional movies?
20.
Does Taiwan have an unconventional director?
21. How can you improve your
ball-handling?
22. Would rather have some
hushpuppies or Philly cheesesteak for dinner? How come?
23. What is the difference
between an ordinance and mandate?
24. Do you want some ketchup on
your hushpuppies? How about vinegar?
25. Do you feel the Los Angeles
Lakers can make a deep playoff run this year? Elaborate.
26. If you are having problems
interacting with a mercurial classmate, what can you do?
