The Ringer - Let’s Talk About Kyrie Irving

View in your browser
Twitter     Facebook     Instagram 
The Ringer
In the October 15 newsletter:
Kyrie Irving’s stance on the vaccine is a complicated and not very fun thing to talk about, because it’s a story in which two individually messy subjects intersect in compoundingly messy ways. But let's talk about it ...
 

Reacting to the Kyrie Irving Situation

Logan Murdock and Raja Bell give their final thoughts on the situation in Brooklyn after the Nets said he won’t play with the team until he can fully contribute and Kyrie put his reasoning on the internet. LISTEN ON SPOTIFY.

Basketball season is back and there’s no better place to bet on the NBA than FanDuel Sportsbook. To celebrate NBA tip-off, FanDuel Sportsbook is giving new customers 75/1 odds on any team to win on October 19 or 20. That’s right, you can turn $2 into $150 just by betting on your favorite team to win. And while you’re there, check out all the great props, futures, and boosts that they have every day. Make sure you head over to FanDuel Sportsbook now to get into the action and make every moment more!

The Kyrie Conundrum

Getty Images/Ringer illustration

The current Kyrie Irving saga is about the COVID-19 vaccine. He doesn’t want to get it. New York City’s vaccine mandate stipulates that he can’t play in home games if he doesn’t. His team, the Brooklyn Nets, after a bit of dithering, has declared that the seven-time All-Star won’t practice or play “until he is eligible to be a full participant,” meaning, I guess, until either he gets vaccinated or New York changes its law. His teammates, including All-Stars Kevin Durant and James Harden, are understood (by the people who understand these things—whoever they are) to have supported this decision.

Irving’s motives for refusing the vaccine and possibly losing out on around $17 million in salary while possibly torching the championship hopes of a team he was instrumental in assembling are, like many things about Irving, a little tricky to pin down. To go by a mishmash of anonymous comments reportedly from people close to him and a dizzyingly incoherent statement he released on Instagram, he’s not anti-vax so much as uncomfortable with vaccine mandates in general. It’s hard to be sure, though, because this clear, if possibly misguided, protest position has been jumbled in among a lot of vague rhetoric about how he’s doing what’s best for his body, and how no one will ever take away his voice, and how this isn’t about one side versus the other, and so forth. I have no idea what’s going on inside Irving’s mind, of course—that’s part of the problem—but it’s easy to look at the messaging from his camp and conclude that he himself is not quite sure why he’s doing this, or that he’s attracted to the idea of taking a stand without being excessively clear on the specifics of the stand he’s taking.

An anonymous source told The Athletic earlier this week that Irving wants to be “a voice for the voiceless,” meaning, I guess, people who had lost their jobs after refusing to be vaccinated. This quote gave rise to some funny tweets to the effect that, sure, all the great voices for the voiceless throughout history have declared their intentions through the medium of the unnamed spokesperson. But the thing is, even if you take the statement at face value, people who are opposed to vaccine mandates are not “the voiceless” in America. They have numerous voices. Their voices include one of our two major political parties and our most widely viewed television news channel

[Read more from Brian Phillips]
 

“If he wanted to show moral leadership on an urgent public-health issue, he should have spent his energy urging his followers to be vaccinated voluntarily before mandates were even on the table.”
—Brian Phillips
Twitter     Facebook     Instagram 
Copyright © 2021 Bill Simmons Media Group. All rights reserved.

The Ringer
1438 N. Gower St.
Los Angeles, CA 90028


Unsubscribe | Manage Preferences | Contact

Key phrases

Older messages

This Is Who Jon Gruden Always Was

Tuesday, October 12, 2021

The story is more than just his emails. View in your browser Twitter Facebook Instagram Share | Subscribe The Ringer In the October 12 newsletter: Jon Gruden is out as the Las Vegas Raiders' head

Is Brandon Staley the One?

Tuesday, October 5, 2021

View in your browser Twitter Facebook Instagram Share | Subscribe The Ringer In the October 5 newsletter: A look at the Chargers' new head coach, the best acting in The Many Saints of Newark, and

The Oral History of ‘That Thing You Do!'

Friday, October 1, 2021

View in your browser Twitter Facebook Instagram Share | Subscribe The Ringer In the October 1 newsletter: An oral history of That Thing You Do!, a look at the G League Ignite after one year, and the

When Is a Rookie Quarterback Really Ready in the NFL?

Friday, September 24, 2021

View in your browser Twitter Facebook Instagram Share | Subscribe The Ringer In the September 24 newsletter: The readiness of rookie QBs, a ranking of the biggest album release dates in modern history,

The Pursuit of the Elite Quarterback

Tuesday, September 21, 2021

View in your browser Twitter Facebook Instagram Share | Subscribe The Ringer In the September 21 newsletter: The pursuit of the elite quarterback, Matt Amodio's Jeopardy! run, and the best 2-0

You Might Also Like

☕ I can see it now

Friday, March 29, 2024

Is video the next AI frontier? March 29, 2024 Tech Brew PRESENTED BY Infinity Fuel It's Friday. Today we've rounded up AI news from the extended Brewniverse: Tech Brew's Patrick Kulp kicks

The Police Have A Dark Money Slush Fund

Friday, March 29, 2024

Corporate interests are funneling far more money to law enforcement than previously known — often with scant oversight. Police are receiving hundreds of millions of dollars a year in secret funding

A very bad year for press freedom

Friday, March 29, 2024

Plus: Beyoncé's new album, Netanyahu's new crisis, and more. March 29, 2024 View in browser Good morning! I'm back, here to dig into a topic close to my heart. —Caroline Houck, senior

Numlock News: March 29, 2024 • Trading Cards, Kite Fights, Breadfruit

Friday, March 29, 2024

By Walt Hickey Have a great weekend! Kite Fighting A popular competitive sport in Brazil is kite fighting, where competitors try to cut down their opponents kites while avoiding getting their own kite

☕️ Floppy-haired fraudster

Friday, March 29, 2024

SBF is sentenced to 25 years... March 29, 2024 View Online | Sign Up | Shop Morning Brew PRESENTED BY Impact.com Good morning. Today marks one year since Evan Gershkovich, a 32-year-old American Wall

AI hallucinates software packages and devs download them – even if potentially poisoned with malware [Fri Mar 29 2024]

Friday, March 29, 2024

Hi The Register Subscriber | Log in The Register {* Daily Headlines *} 29 March 2024 Illustration of someone in a hoodie looking at a bench with a cloud over it AI hallucinates software packages and

What A Day: Clown by law

Friday, March 29, 2024

Trump's lawyers are having another rough one. And the mainstream media could learn a lesson from the legal world about handling corruption. Thursday, March 28, 2024 BY CROOKED MEDIA —Steve Bannon,

🌶️ Is it getting hot in here?

Friday, March 29, 2024

Introducing our theme for April plus fun stuff to read, watch, and click on. March 28, 2024 Open in new tab Did a friend forward this? Subscribe today! April's Theme is SPICY It was chosen by our

What 58 Famous People Smell Like

Friday, March 29, 2024

Here's what you missed on the Strategist. The Strategist Every product is independently selected by editors. If you buy something through our links, New York may earn an affiliate commission. What

Trump Would Need New Tactics to Steal the 2024 Election

Thursday, March 28, 2024

Columns and commentary on news, politics, business, and technology from the Intelligencer team. Intelligencer early and often Trump Would Need New Tactics to Steal the 2024 Election Many avenues Trump