New York City is among the places where NBA players are expected to follow the local COVID-19 vaccine mandates. While the league itself is not able to mandate the vaccine, it has laid out that local vaccine requirements will need to be followed, meaning players would miss practices or games so long as these are in place.
The Golden State Warriors are reportedly running into trouble here with Andrew Wiggins, who has explicitly said he has no intention of getting vaccinated unless he has to. A new piece by Yaron Weitzman of Fox Sports indicates that the Brooklyn Nets are running into an issue here, too, because Kyrie Irving has yet to get vaccinated.
The report comes after Nets general manager Sean Marks was asked about the local ordinances, and while he did not specify, he said that there would be issues if the season started today that he anticipates would be remedied by the time the season starts.
Via ESPN:
“Regarding if they could play today, I can’t comment on who could play and so forth,” Marks said Tuesday in the team’s preseason news conference. “There would obviously be a couple people missing from that picture.
“I won’t get into who it is, but we feel confident in the following several days before camp everybody would be allowed to participate and so forth.”
When asked if he believed the issue would be resolved before regular-season games begin next month, Marks simply said, “Correct.”
It’s unclear whether or not Marks meant the issue would be resolved because players would be vaccinated or New York’s ordinances would be lifted. Brooklyn’s training camp is slated to start next week, while their season starts on Oct. 19 against the Milwaukee Bucks.
