In his annual season opening press conference Monday, Adam Silver said he hopes that Kyrie Irving will ultimately get vaccinated but that the issue is between the Nets and the city of New York. It is not a “league issue,” the commissioner argued.
Before addressing Irving’s situation, Silver said that he would have preferred a mandate that covered every NBA player, but the players union, the NBPA, declined. The NBA’s referees and team staff are both covered by mandates.
“I won’t try to speak for [the NBPA], other than the view that some players had, I think — including maybe some players who are vaccinated — that it should be an individual choice among the players,” Silver said said during the conference, which was again conducted virtually because of the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic.