Rant #2,750: Hit Me With Your Best Shot

I just want to alert you that this story that I am going to talk about today really isn’t a straight sports story, but yes, the main figures in the story are athletes and sports management …
 
And the city and state of New York.
 
So if you don’t like it when I write sports stories, I urge you to read on, because this story is far bigger than sports.
 
Let’s begin this tale of such a ridiculous nature that I cannot believe that it has had to come to this.
 
Kyrie Irving, the Brooklyn Nets star guard, will not be able to play this season until he gets his coronavirus shots.
 
I could stop right there, but let me continue.
 
The Nets, who have a good enough team to believe that they will be not only a contender for the NBA title, but the winner of that championship, have decided that since their star guard has created his own quagmire by refusing to get these shots, and the team is bound by city and state mandates related to those who are not getting the shots, that they have no choice but to shut their player down, possibly for the season, or until he gets his shot(s).
 
Nets management carefully pussy-footed around what the rest of the world knew was pretty obvious—that Irving, probably the most self-centered athlete and maybe even person I have ever known to exist (it is not just this episode that I base this observance on), unlike his teammates and just about every other player in the league, has not gotten his shots.
 
They used every contrivance in the book to diddle daddle around the fact, pacifying their star player while doing so while adding to his inflated ego at the same time.
 
Irving practiced with the team while they were out west, and then when they came back home to practice for the season, which begins next week, New York City did one of the most idiotic things imaginable: allowing Irving to practice in the Nets’ Brooklyn training facility because they claimed that the facility was a private one, and they had no jurisdiction over a private facility.
 
But the Nets took the high road on this situation, finally, and have barred Irving from practicing and playing any games with them until like his peers, he gets inoculated.
 
At first, this was solely based on an edict by New York State and San Francisco, that stated that if you are of adult age, and you have not been inoculated, you cannot enter an indoor facility.
 
But then the Nets got smart, admitted what the real situation was, and will move on without this egocentric crybaby player as they look to win their first NBA championship with Kevin Durant and James Harden, two players who got their shots like the rest of the team did, leading the way.
 
But, of course, being that we are talking about sports, Irving is not being fully “punished” for refusing to take his shots: the team is not releasing him, supposedly not trading him, and he is only being docked the salary he would attain by playing on the road.
 
The thought is that the New York State and San Francisco mandates were government created and enforced, while the Nets are also not allowing him to play in Atlanta, Houston, Philadelphia and other road stops where he could conceivably play, so they are only docking him his salary for road games because that is based on their own mandate, not one put on them by the government.
 
Based on this, he stands to lose about $480,000 each road game he misses—less three where he cannot play in Madison Square Garden and in San Francisco due to political mandates, so he will lose his salary for about 38 road games, and that checks out at a total of $18,240,000 in lost wages.
 
Here is what the Nets had to say about this situation, and why it took them until yesterday to say this is beyond my comprehension:
 
“"Given the evolving nature of the situation and after thorough deliberation, we have decided Kyrie Irving will not play or practice with the team until he is eligible to be a full participant," Nets general manager Sean Marks announced in a prepared statement on Tuesday morning. "Kyrie has made a personal choice, and we respect his individual right to choose. Currently the choice restricts his ability to be a full-time member of the team, and we will not permit any member of our team to participate with part-time availability."
 
My personal spin on this is that as you know, I don’t believe in these mandates. They are being created by equally maniacal politicians to put the blame on others for the failings of the shot program, rather than look at themselves in the mirror and admit that they have lied from the beginning about the efficacy of these shots, marketed them wrongly and confused an entire population as to what they actually do.
 
But that aside, if the mandates are in place, I believe that they have to be followed.
 
I am sure that millions of people did not want to get the shots but got them anyway, and millions have gotten them in the past few weeks as the mandates have been put into place … to save their jobs, their health insurance, their pensions, their Social Security, and a lot of other things that are bigger than this virus will ever be.
 
And those who still refuse, and quite frankly, those who cannot see the forest for the trees, still refuse to get their shots, and in doing so, lose their jobs, lose their health insurance, screw up their pensions and their Social Security, and put themselves and their families at great risk.
 
That is not Irving, because he is above all of these people, what with his multi-million dollar salary that he will be getting regardless of whether he plays a single game or not this season because of his idiotic stance.
 
But his foresight is just as stupid as those who are putting everything on the line by not getting the shot that as mandated by New York State.
 
On Irving’s level, he has been a nuisance and a lightning stick his entire career.
 
He takes off from the season at a moment’s notice, and let’s remember that last year, he went against the strict NBA coronavirus protocols and attended a family party where he and others contracted the disease.
 
But again, he is no different from his less well off brothers in stupidity, putting lots on the line for not doing what he should be doing, which is getting the shots while he holds his nose.
 
Sure, maybe he can afford financially to be stupid, but so many others who refuse to get the shot are not so well heeled, and are giving up everything because they feel the need to spite their nose while they bite their faces.
 
The right way to handle this horrible corner that so many people have been painted into is to get the shot, and then use the political clout that we all have at the voting booth and get rid of those who have created these idiotic edicts and vote them out come Election Day.
 
That is the only way that we can “reward” those who wear “Vaxed” chains around their necks, but will the electorate do just this very thing to demonstrate that they have not been in agreement with these edicts?
 
Time will tell, and time will also tell if Kyrie Irving sits on the sidelines bathing in his own drivel or gets onto the court doing the right thing and stop acting like a prima donna and gets his shot(s).
 
And if athletes are truly role models, then it is incumbent on Irving to put his tail between his legs and get the shots, to show young people that sometimes, you have to do things that you don’t want to do, because it is something that at the moment is the right thing to do.
 
That would be more important than a slam dunk, a three pointer, or winning the NBA championship right now.