Kyrie Irving is not the real villain here

BILLIONfaucets are stupid enough to form a unified theory of Kyrie Irving I’ve spent a decade being fooled by a ruthless freak, but I, writer Corbin Smith, believe I’ve cracked the code. Kyrie Irving is, first and foremost, someone with pain in the buttock. It was the only continuous rope throughout his career.

It’s confusing sometimes. He won a title with LeBron in Cleveland, the first person in that city in more than 50 years, and instead of looking to a future where he can take another hit (or three) there, he asks for an out of town trade where he can look for another form of authentication than the Celtics. Then he told the people he trusted Flat Earth, that’s pretty weird. Sometimes it kicks ass: like when he emerges as a central figure in an attempt to get NBA to dedicate COVID-19 bubble playoffs to Black Lives Matter movementor when, after the defeat to the Boston Celtics and their squad full of kids, he went back to New England, fooled them in the playoffs, and stomped on their logo’s creepy face in the middle of the game..

Sometimes, Kyrie is just your standard pain in the butt. This year, though he plays for the Brooklyn Nets, one of the NBA’s top championship contenders, Kyrie was benched for the entire NBA season due to his refusal to receive a COVID-19 vaccine. There are several other NBA players who have refused to be vaccinated safely to prevent catching and spreading a deadly disease that has killed millions around the world, but Kyrie is the only one lucky enough to get it. playing in the state of New York, requiring anyone entering a basketball arena to provide proof of vax.

He was pretty quiet about my terrible decision, though some recent scuttlebutt have suggested that he might be willing to get a plant-based vaccine is currently under development. Kyrie is such a big pain in the ass that he doesn’t even give humble writers the guts to dove him like a specific type of anti-vaxxer. He’s Schrodinger’s basketball player: always on the move even when you try to watch him in a controlled environment. There is no conclusion about him. He’s just Kyrie, damn Kyrie.

As he sat and the season went on without him, the Nets developed a bigger COVID problem than Kyrie. This week, most of their group tested positive for COVID-19. Outside of Kyrie, of course, the team is vaccinated, but immunity isn’t perfect and doesn’t last forever, and as an NBA player who lives on the street and plays in front of lots of different people every night in a different country. have been treated with the vaccine as a Great accessory instead of the main weapon needed in the fight against infectious diseases, making you a hot target for an opportunistic virus.

Without any players to hang on to, the Nets are creating a truly insane team: Blake Griffin, now a respectable player, and veteran Aussie combo guard Patty Mills have led a team. There are also three rookies and three boys who signed a contract with 10 days. contract. This could be the worst one-game list ever by a legitimate NBA championship contender. On Saturday night, this powerful crew lost to the Orlando Magic 6-25. If you want to watch Robin Lopez throw some hooks past Blake Griffin, brutally underrated in central position, please click here.

Staring at a lucrative two-week gap in between their title wins, the Nets chose a desperate move: they activated Irving, still unvaccinated, to play half of the games they play. on the road. He still needs to sit out a week to clear COVID protocols, but he’ll be in court soon in a random Midwestern city near you. Irving was not immediately included in their group — as he was unvaccinated and tested due to his absence from the group, he was placed on COVID protocols until he signed up for five years. negative test on consecutive days.

No GM Sean Marks told reporters that “… the overall environment has changed, as we all know, dramatically.” This is true on two quantities: Nets We more trouble than before, and the Omicron variant seems poised to send a whole new wave of COVID madness into the brutal, brutal society of the United States. “A few months ago, we made a decision based on what was best for the team. The best thing for the team at the time was continuity. And I think we’ve all seen that continuum right now throughout the last week and whatever the future may be, that’s probably not going to happen for a while, and we’re going to navigate that well. possible. ” In short: when we first did the right thing, we weren’t damned. But now, you see, we’re damned, so… we’re going to do something pretty stupid stupid.

Almost immediately after the decision on Irving was announced, Kevin Durant, now a key player for the NBA MVP, tested positive for the virus.

Marks and the Nets organization are being irresponsible. By any reasonable epidemiological measure, Irving must sit until he is vaccinated. But it is difficult to observe the situation and not come to the conclusion that the Nets are also pragmatic. They are encouraged to win the game. They need the players to make that happen. All their normal players were sitting in empty rooms somewhere. A player they can play, at least not yet, and there’s no rule against playing him, even if he’s a single-player super-event waiting to happen.

This week, the US Court of Appeals for the sixth round restored The Biden administration’s routine vetting or vaccine testing mandate for companies with more than a hundred employees. The trust was widespread support among major medical institutions, and is often seen as something useful, What law enforcement can do to prevent the spread of COVID-19. The mandate, slated to take effect in January, was initially suspended by Fifth Street due in part to a legal challenge brought by the National Retail Federation, the retail trade association representing the interests. from retailers across the United States.

NRF confirm that they agree with the task in the summary, but they love that it starts in February, after the holiday season and the annual shopping pleasure it generates. The labor market is tight, they need all the employees they can get, and they can’t be expected to tackle assignments or get rid of anti-vaxxers right now, they argue. Macy’s CEO Jeff Genette tried to sell the company’s point of view arrive Times: “We have a lot of stores that are open wide, and any ruling that we force those colleagues to get vaccinated before Christmas will only exacerbate our labor shortage already in the making. a really important period for us.”

Of course, Macy’s is choosing to play a dangerous game. By allowing unvaccinated employees to work on their floors during their peak traffic times of the year, they are inviting contagion, especially among under-vaccinated populations. across the country. It was a pure epidemiological violation.

Kevork Djansezian / Getty

However, just like the Nets were forced to play Langston Galloway in December, Macy’s and other retailers were all hit hard. Any incentive to play requires them to do whatever it takes to navigate this economic environment as stably as possible. For them, it doesn’t matter if the spread of COVID will be fueled by their desperate need to get any warm body that can sell a fur coat; Their function is to sell pea coats, and no one can change that. They aren’t a more plausible epidemiological agent than the Nets floundering in another mid-season employment crisis, or Kyrie and his initial desire for a sore butt. Every decision companies are making right now is Scorpions and Foxes: we cannot depend on people to make decisions for us. The second they realize they’re a bit spoiled, they’ll burn us and we’ll all drown, because that’s their nature.

It’s not about Kyrie or the Nets or Macy’s. It is the US government that has chosen the path of least resistance from the second FDA broadly confirmed immunization for all adults in August. At that point, federal mandates should have made life unreasonably difficult for anyone who opted out of a safe and effective means of managing the crisis. biggest, thorniest and deadliest of our generation. Any legal challenge could come as soon as possible, so we don’t have to spend another cold season in the quagmire of another outbreak. People chatting in court about “individual freedom” that really hasn’t existed since the 1970s should have kicked. The US government is the only organization that can do that, through BS, and do what needs to be done, and they choose to take it easy to salvage some of the political turmoil over vaccines that they nonetheless also no. You can accuse the people involved of doing wrong when there is no united front, but what is the point? They are just agents of profits, or whatever Kyrie happens on that particular day. You cannot depend on their better nature.