Brooklyn Nets Bringing Back Kyrie Irving For Road Games Despite Unvaccinated Status
NEW YORK (CBSNewYork) -- The Brooklyn Nets are bringing back Kyrie Irving even though he's still not vaccinated.
Reports say he was in the facility Friday getting all the tests, and they hope to have him back for road games only.
Irving has missed the entire season after the team told him to stay home unless he gets vaccinated.
The Nets are in a tough spot, however, because they're dealing with a rash of COVID cases, putting a strain on the unaffected players.
CBS2's Steve Overmyer asked basketball insider Adam Zagoria, of ZagsBlog, if the Nets are taking on a bigger risk by adding an unvaccinated player to the locker room.
"The Nets are certainly taking a risk here, bringing an unvaccinated player into their locker room, where they've already got COVID issues. Presumably they've talked that over with their medical people and they're willing to take the risk," Zagoria said.
Irving can't play in New York City or Toronto due to COVID vaccine mandates, so the team will have a road offense and a home offense.
"It's probably going to be a little confusing for guys like Cam Thomas and some of the other players. Their role is going to change, but again, it's an experiment that the Nets decided they're willing to try out. They're in first place. The goal of this team from day one has been to win an NBA championship. I'm sure they hope that Kyrie gets vaccinated and can play in all the games sooner or later, but I don't think we've seen any evidence of that," Zagoria said.