Golden State Warriors forward Andrew Wiggins and Brooklyn Nets guard Kyrie Irving faced similar predicaments entering the 2021 NBA season.
Both reportedly expressed skepticism about the benefits of the COVID-19 vaccine, which has proven to drastically reduce severe illness and death. Both were concerned about public pressure campaigns to get more people vaccinated, even though that's been employed on countless occasions to inoculate large swaths of people against deadly diseases. And both men, unlike some of their vaccine-hesitant NBA peers, were confronted with city-specific rules that would have prevented them from playing in home games unless they got the jab.