Brooklyn Nets point guard Kyrie Irving recently addressed the media regarding uncertainty he had coming back to the Nets in the off season and revealed he turned down a 4-year $100 million contract to remain unvaccinated despite Nets’ demand he get vaccinated.
Kyrie Irving during Nets @ Cavs, 17 January 2022 Photo Credit: Erik Drost, CC BY 2.0 <https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0>, via Wikimedia Commons
Back in June it was announced that Irving opted into the final year of his contract with the Brooklyn Nets that will earn him $36.5 million.
Irving made the announcement through The Athletic’s Shams Charania telling him, “Normal people keep the world going, but those who dare to be different lead us into tomorrow. I’ve made my decision to opt in. See you in the fall. A11even.”
Shams Charania Twitter
During the Nets’ media day, Irving was asked about his decision and whether or not he had any doubt about the Nets.
He answered, “We had some internal conversations at the end of the season and we started to have some that I felt were going in the right direction, but it just didn’t end up well going into free agency and what that looked like for the long term.”
“And I understood all the Nets’ points and I respected it, and honored it, and I didn’t appreciate how me being unvaccinated all of a sudden came to be a stigma within my career. That I don’t want to play or I’m willing to give up everything to be a voice for the voiceless,” he elaborated.
Irving continued, “Which I will stand on here and say that wasn’t the only intent that I had was to be the voice for the voiceless; it was to stand on something that was going to be bigger than myself and that I was going to understand probably far into the future. I don’t know when.”
“But I’ll get back to my point in saying that there was a level of uncertainty of what this was going to look like of me coming back and I had questions. They were answered truthfully, and that’s all I needed. And now it’s just having the support around me and giving the support to my teammates and we go from there,” he asserted.
Kyrie Irving via Brooklyn Nets YouTube
Irving then revealed the contract he turned down, “I gave up four years, a hundred and something million deciding to be unvaccinated and that was the decision because the contract [was] get vaccinated or be unvaccinated and there’s a level of uncertainty of your future whether you’re going to be in this league, whether you’re going to be on this team.
He explained, “So I had to deal with that real life circumstance of losing my job for this decision. So I was dealing with all of those emotions while trying to secure my future for my family, ultimately.”
“It was a lot of decisions that had to be made, but a lot of truthful conversations that gave me peace of mind to come back and really just be all in,” he concluded.
Kyrie Irving via CLNS Media YouTube
When asked a follow-up question about whether it was “get the extension and be vaccinated or play this out and be unvaccinated and deal with the rest on the back end,” he responded, “We were supposed to have all that figured out before training camp last year. And it just didn’t happen because of the status of me being vaccinated, unvaccinated.”
“I understood their point and I just had to live with it and it was a tough pill to swallow, honestly,” he added.
Kyrie Irving via Brooklyn Nets YouTube
He would also answer a question if he there was another team he was close to joining. Irving answered, “Yeah. Yeah. There were options, but not many, I’ll tell you that because, again, the stigma of whether or not I want to play, whether or not I’m going to be committed to team, which I thought was really unfair at times, but also the timing was ideal to be able to put that on me because I wasn’t available.”
Irving continued, “So now that I’m here and actually present at media and not on a Zoom call and I can take pictures and be with my teammates and connect to everybody, it feels even better. It’s an exciting time to be in this environment and being able to move past what we did last year and the years prior.”
Kyrie Irving via Brooklyn Nets YouTube
Irving would then be asked, “Are you saying the organization told you if you got the vaccine your extension would be there?”
He answered, “I felt like I was forced with an ultimatum of whether or not I had a contract or not or whether or not I could be on the team or be around the team whether or not I was vaccinated. So tough conversations, again, that were had and we both left out of there with respect and I understood where they were coming from as an organization, Joe, and representing the team.
“And then also he understood where I was coming from. I was definitely put in that position where I had to make a decision,” he added.
Kyrie Irving via NBC Sports Boston
Irving has been outspoken against the vaccine and the mandates enforced by numerous governmental bodies.
He recently took to Twitter declaring, “If I can work and be unvaccinated, then all of my brothers and sisters who are also unvaccinated should be able to do the same, without being discriminated against, vilified, or fired.”
He then added, “This enforced Vaccine/Pandemic is one the biggest violations of HUMAN RIGHTS in history.”
Kyrie Irving Twitter
He also shared a clip of Alex Jones from 2002 where the TV personality says, “The facts and common sense are in. Yes, there have been corrupt empires. Yes, they manipulate. Yes, there are secret societies. Yes, there have been oligarchies throughout history. And yes, today in 2002, there is a tyrannical organization calling itself the New World Order pushing for worldwide government, a cashless society, total and complete tyranny.”
Jones continues, “By centralizing and socializing health care, the state becomes God basically when it comes to your health. And then by releasing diseases and viruses and plagues upon us, we then basically get shoved into their system, where human beings are absolutely worthless.”
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What do you make of Irving turning down the four-year contract with the Nets over his vaccination status?
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