Nets guard Kyrie Irving could be cleared to play in Brooklyn for home games in the coming weeks following comments from New York City mayor Eric Adams addressing the city’s plan to phase out of its COVID-19 vaccine mandate.
The current mandate prevents Nets guard Kyrie Irving—who is not vaccinated against COVID-19—from playing in home games in Brooklyn this season. However, a player from a visiting team that is unvaccinated against the coronavirus can still play at Barclays Center and Madison Square Garden.
Adams said he cannot wait to secure the city’s plan of getting back to a sense of normalcy but he will not rush the process in fear of the city having to shut down again.
“I can’t wait to get it done ... I'm not going to get ahead of the science because I'm ready to get ahead of all of this and get back to a level of normalcy ... we’re moving in the right direction, we’re going to do it in a safe way,” Adams said.
“We can't close down again ... our economy can’t handle it .... we are going to get the city back up and operating and we are going to be rolling out some things in the next day or so on how we are going to carry that out.”
However, until the mandate has been lifted, the current rules for the city will remain in place according to a city spokesperson, per The Athletic’s Shams Charania. Once NYC removes the mandate, Irving will be cleared to play in home games.
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The latest news about NYC’s mandate comes a week after Adams addressed NBA commissioner Adam Silver’s comments on the city’s vaccine mandate applying only home teams. Adams believed the rule was unfair but was very leery.
“I don’t know but I am really really leery about sending the wrong message,” Adams said. “Having the city close down again keeps me up at night. And the message we put in place, the rule we put in place, to start changing it now, I think it would send mixed messages.”
Currently, nearly 97 to 98% of NBA players are vaccinated against COVID-19.
