By Al S. Mendoza 

 

KYRIE Irving is the last man standing in the (NBA) National Basketball Association.

By that, I mean Irving remains the NBA’s only unvaccinated star player.

They were two just before the league’s 75th season had kicked off.

But Andrew Wiggins beat the deadline, giving him the license to play for the powerhouse Golden State Warriors.

Wiggins became an instant starter for the former champion Warriors.

Coach Steve Kerr was elated no end as Golden State continues to be up there in the standings in the West Division.

But with Irving stubbornly clinging on to his anti-vaccine stance, his team, the Brooklyn Nets, continue to struggle in the East Division.

Irving is a major cog in the Brooklyn lineup.

He is the third jewel in the Nets Terrible Trio that include James Harden and Kevin Durant.

Without Irving, the Nets teeter between life and death, their standing very unsure as the league goes into the homestretch.

An extremely talented player, Irving’s services are badly needed as teams head jockey frenetically for positions in the playoffs.

But because of his extremely unpopular stance of dodging the vaccine all these years, Irving has not only annoyed his teammates but his legion of fans as well.

Irving is actually in a queer position.

Being unvaccinated, he cannot play for Brooklyn when it plays in New York City’s Madison Square Garden or any arena in NYC.

The NYC mandates only vaccinated athletes to engage in contact sport to include basketball.

The Big Apple has that similar vaccine rule in San Francisco, CA—thus, Wiggins is covered by the rule.

Irving is being allowed to play for Brooklyn in other venues.

But I see that as more of a disadvantage than anything because Irving’s on-and-off appearance only adds to the disruption of Brooklyn’s play patterns often mastered in scrimmages.

That was the same reason cited by LeBron James when he abandoned his no-vaccine policy for himself to get the jab and continue leading the Los Angeles Lakers as their captain.

Although they are hovering between 7th and 8th as the NBA nears the playoffs—their cause hurt all the more by the absence of the injured Anthony Davis—James and the Lakers are still a cinch to clinch a ticket going to the next round.

Despite Irving’s stubbornness, he is lucky that he hasn’t gotten the virus—n’yet.

This, amid many unreported cases of infections among NBA players.

Fortunately, the virus is now relatively being easily contained with the onslaught of medicines discovered by science worldwide.

One no-vax sporting star that hogged the headlines recently was world tennis No. 1 Novak Djokovic of Serbia.

For entering Australia unvaccinated, authorities sent him home, effectively denying him the chance to defend his Aussie Open crown in Melbourne.

His deportation also deprived him of possibly winning his 10th Aussie Open title and a record 21st Grand Slam to make him the greatest tennis player of all time.

Even the best have minds too hard to fathom.

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