NEW YORK — Brooklyn Nets guard Kyrie Irving says he turned down a four-year extension previous to the 2021-22 season due to his determination to not get vaccinated towards COVID-19.
“I gave up 4 years, 100-and-something million deciding to be unvaccinated and that was the choice,” Irving mentioned throughout Nets media day on Monday. “[Get this] contract, get vaccinated or be unvaccinated and there is a stage of uncertainty of your future, whether or not you are going to be on this league, whether or not you are going to be on this crew, so I needed to take care of that real-life circumstance of dropping my job for this determination.”
Irving, who just isn’t vaccinated towards COVID-19 and was pressured to overlook dwelling video games in Brooklyn till late March due to a New York Metropolis vaccination mandate, opted into the ultimate 12 months of his contract, a participant possibility value $36.5 million, previous to the season. The 30-year-old mentioned he felt the choice whether or not to get vaccinated was like “an ultimatum” from the group, in regard to his contract.
Irving mentioned he was hopeful that he would have the contract phrases set previous to final season.
“We had been purported to have all that found out earlier than coaching camp final 12 months,” Irving mentioned. “And it simply did not occur due to the standing of me being vaccinated, unvaccinated. So, I understood their level and I simply needed to reside with it. It was a tricky tablet to swallow, truthfully.”
For his half, Nets GM Sean Marks pushed again on the notion that Irving was given an “ultimatum” relating to his contract.
“There isn’t any ultimatum being given right here,” Marks mentioned. “Once more, it goes again to you need people who find themselves dependable, people who find themselves right here, and accountable. All of us: workers, gamers, coaches, you identify it. It isn’t giving anyone an ultimatum to get a vaccine. That is a totally private alternative. I stand by Kyrie. I believe if he desires, he is made that alternative. That is his prerogative fully.”
Marks acknowledged that it was in the end New York Metropolis’s vaccination mandate, coupled with Irving’s anti-vaccination determination, that stalled conversations concerning the future.
“So two summers in the past, that was pre-citywide, statewide mandates that went in,” Marks mentioned. “So as soon as the vaccine mandates got here in, and we knew how that may have an effect on [Irving] enjoying dwelling video games and so forth, that is when contract talks stalled. So it did not get to [a point], ‘Here is the deal, now take it again.’ That by no means occurred.”
Marks mentioned that whereas contract discussions about Irving’s future broke down once more this summer season, he’s assured that Irving is totally dedicated to being a Internet shifting ahead.
“On the finish of the day, we’re joyful that Kyrie is again right here,” Marks mentioned. “I am listening to the press convention he had this morning and my takeaway from that’s that he is dedicated. He understands that to ensure that him to be a free agent and get what he rightfully desires, he will have to point out dedication on the market. We’re joyful to assist him in any attainable means all through the season to ensure that he is wholesome and able to go.”
Irving mentioned that whereas he understood the place the group was coming from after the season, he was annoyed by the truth that his determination to not get vaccinated “got here to be a stigma inside my profession.”
“I understood all of the Nets’ factors,” Irving mentioned. “And I revered it and I honored it, and I did not admire how me being vaccinated, unexpectedly, got here to be a stigma inside my profession that I do not need to play, or I am keen to surrender every thing to be a voice for the unvoiced. And which I’ll stand on right here and say that, that wasn’t the one intent that I had, was to be the voice of the unvoiced, it was to face on one thing that was going to be larger than myself.
“And I used to be going to know most likely far into the long run … there was a stage of uncertainty of what this was going to appear like of me coming again. And I had questions, they had been answered in truth. And that is all I wanted. And now it is simply having the assist round me and giving the assist to my teammates.”
As Irving’s future throughout the group continues to unfold, star ahead Kevin Durant spoke publicly for the primary time about his personal eventful summer season by which he requested a commerce, requested for Marks and coach Steve Nash to be fired, after which, in the end, determined to stick with the Nets.
“There was a whole lot of uncertainty round our crew final 12 months,” Durant mentioned. “I dedicated to this group for 4 years final summer season with the thought we had been gonna play with that group that we form of went on that little run to the second spherical [in the 2020 playoffs]. I felt like one other 12 months of that, us being wholesome — we had been constructing one thing in the direction of the long run.
“Then because the season went on, you seen what occurred with our season, guys out and in of the lineup, accidents, simply a whole lot of uncertainty, which constructed some doubt in my thoughts concerning the subsequent 4 years in my profession. I imply, I am getting older and I need to be in a spot that is steady and making an attempt to construct a championship tradition. So I had some doubts about that. I voiced them to [owner] Joe [Tsai], and we moved ahead from there.”
Durant mentioned he wasn’t “dissatisfied” or stunned that he was nonetheless in Brooklyn.
“No,” Durant mentioned. “I do know I am that good that you simply’re simply not going to offer me away. In order that’s one factor I did admire about Sean and Joe [they said]. ‘You are too nice for us to offer you away.’ Simply that straightforward, that straightforward. So, I get that. I do know who I’m.”
Durant additionally wished to set the file straight on what he perceives is his personal place throughout the group, saying he can “solely management my job and my job is to be a participant.”
“I am not the liaison between Kyrie and the group,” Durant mentioned. “I at all times informed them that. I at all times informed Sean and Kyrie y’all gotta construct your relationship how y’all do it. As a result of everyone’s separate, everyone’s totally different, you method every participant in a different way.”
Durant mentioned the Nets may have fought more durable by adversity down the stretch of final season when he was out with an harm, noting that that is what championship-caliber groups do.
“After I went out with the harm, we misplaced [11] in a row,” he mentioned. “And I am like we should not be dropping a few of these video games that we misplaced, no matter who’s on the ground. So I used to be extra so anxious about how we’re approaching every single day as a basketball crew. And I felt like we may have fought by a whole lot of stuff that I felt held us again. Championship groups do this. You have seen Steph Curry and the Warriors, he was injured going into the playoffs. Their crew nonetheless fought and gained video games. Luka [Doncic], he was harm and their crew nonetheless fought and gained video games.
“I felt like we had sufficient expertise to do this. And that is what was essentially the most about in my thoughts is that when adversity hit can we hold pushing by it? I have been on championship groups, I have been on groups which were proper on the brink of profitable a championship, and so they did these issues. So I wished to be part of a bunch that did that.
“Profitable and dropping, I may take all that. I have been within the league for a very long time. So it is no more so about only a end result. It is how we get to that time. And I wasn’t feeling how we had been attending to that time. I did not need it to have an effect on the sport so I waited to the offseason to inform individuals how I felt.”