A SURE WAY TO JOLT NBA PROBLEM CHILDREN: DON’T PAY THEM
Between Kyrie Irving and a brigade of anti-vaxxers — and Ben Simmons’ misfired trade demand and absence — franchises can extinguish public firestorms by taking away sizable earnings
Don’t look now, Adam Silver, but the ideal of player empowerment has raged into the idiocy of anarchy. The NBA commissioner, in his headlong pursuit of wokeness, has only himself to blame for a state of disorder in a league that aches for stability and fun after two years of disruption.
Start with Kyrie Irving, the prince of pseudo-intellectual prattle, who still thinks Planet Earth is flat. He’s at the freaky-deaky forefront of an anti-vaccine movement that could sabotage the seasons of at least two Finals contenders — the Brooklyn Nets and Golden State Warriors — while jeopardizing the health of vaccinated teammates and staffers worried about breakthrough infections.
“I’m a human being first,’’ said Irving, who doesn’t care about other human beings or, evidently, how he could derail Kevin Durant, James Harden and the Nets. “There’s just a lot of questions about what’s going on in the World of Kyrie, but I would like to keep that private. Please respect my privacy.’’
“Who are you guys where I have to explain what I believe? Or what’s right or wrong in my mind,” said another high-profile vaccine resister, Andrew Wiggins, who isn’t concerned that his Golden State teammate, Klay Thompson, has endured 2 1/2 years of career heartbreak and rehab for a torn left ACL and a shredded right Achilles. “I’m just going to keep fighting for what I believe.’’
There also are questions about the World of Ben, as in Simmons. He’s trying to bullrush his way out of Philadelphia though the very essence of his sport — shooting a round, leather ball through a basket from beyond five feet — mysteriously eludes him. And begs the riddle of how someone who falls woefully short of superstardom can demand a trade.
It’s embarrassing how a league that can generate $9 billion in annual revenues, and a commissioner itching to cut more lucrative broadcast deals, routinely allow dysfunction to control the narrative. As training camps open, we should be focused on whether Durant, who returned valiantly from his own Achilles rupture to dominate the postseason and Tokyo Olympics, and whether he’ll overtake Giannis Antetokounmpo as the reigning hoops king. And whether LeBron James and Anthony Davis meld with Russell Westbrook in Los Angeles or kill him. And whether Devin Booker, who teamed with old man Chris Paul for a surprise Finals appearance in Phoenix, becomes the latest victim of the Kardashian Curse after a summer of global travel with Kendall Jenner left him with COVID-19 — and the same defiant tone voiced by Irving and Wiggins.
“I’m not going to tell you guys if I have the vaccine or not, but you can still get Covid with the vaccine. Educate yourself,” Dr. Booker advised via Zoom from an undisclosed quarantine location.
A league that desperately needs a vaccine mandate continues to be rejected by the National Basketball Players Association, which prefers to protect the 40 or so anti-vaxxers in a league that says 90 percent of the players are fully inoculated. Coaches, trainers and front-office personnel are required to be jabbed twice, but the league is helpless in preventing a superspread by players. It could lead to a competitive imbalance that reduces the season to a sham. In New York City, mayor Bill de Blasio pushed through an order requiring athletes who play or practice indoors to prove they have at least one vaccine shot. In San Francisco, the local government requires double doses.
Meaning, Irving’s continued refusal of the vaccine will leave the Nets shorthanded in 41 regular-season home games at Barclays Center and the playoffs, a maddening prospect for a team that crumbled last spring amid the injuries of Irving and Harden. Wiggins also will have to sit out games at Chase Center, where Steph Curry, Draymond Green and Steve Kerr are thrilled to welcome back Thompson for another potential title run — and don’t want their excitement dampened by the anti-vaccine beliefs of a supporting-cast member.
“Obviously I’m not able to be present there today,” Irving said Monday via Zoom. “But that doesn’t mean I’m putting any limits on the future on my being able to join the team. And I just want to keep it that way. I know that I'll be there every day no matter what and just be present for my teammates as one of the leaders on the team and be there for my growing tribe off the court.’’
His growing tribe off the court? Does that mean he’s considering the shot? Or planning more unexcused absences in the World of Kyrie? “I know the focus has to be at an all-time high, no distractions. This is the last thing I wanted to create, was more distractions and more hoopla and more drama around this,’’ Irving said. “I’m doing my best to maintain this with good intentions and a good heart."
Durant, who asked for this madness when he recruited Irving to join his superteam, is trying not to detonate the ticking bomb. “That's on Kyrie, and that's his personal decision. What he does is not on us to speculate what may happen," he said. "We trust in Kyrie, and I expect us to have our whole team at some point.’’
This also is a consumer issue, asking Brooklyn fans to pay top dollar for home games that might not include one of the league’s showmen. They must be chuckling in Milwaukee, home of the champion Bucks, where Antetokounmpo was motivated to seek the vaccine as a father of two small children. “I did what was best for me and my family’s safety. You do whatever it takes for you and your family to be OK,” he said.
Obviously, the responsibility of public safety and the lure of an NBA championship isn’t enough to overcome some personal beliefs. This is where Silver should grab a bullhorn and issue an intimidating public reminder to Irving, Wiggins, Washington’s Bradley Beal, Orlando’s Jonathan Isaac and other COVID-iots: Players who miss games because they aren’t vaccinated are not paid. That’s a staggering consideration for Irving, who is in the third year of a four-year, $136 million deal and is eligible for a $182 million extension. And for Wiggins, owed $31.5 million this season. “It's my problem. Not yours,’’ he said.
It could be Curry’s problem, too. “We hope he's available. We hope it moves in the right direction,’’ he said. “My opinion is obviously I got it and ready to be available, and following, you know, the mandates and whatnot. But that's kind of where it is and you know, the next coming weeks and how it all plays out is going to be entirely up to him. It's difficult. Everybody is in a difficult kind of position in that respect, and we've all made decisions that you feel like are right for you and your family and whatever the case is. So this is no different, whether you agree with him or not. You have to let it play out."
The loss of paychecks might slap the holdouts with some sense. “I believe it is your God given right to decide if taking the vaccine is right for you! Period!" Isaac tweeted.
Said Beal, the three-time All-Star guard who missed the Olympics because of COVID-19: “With the guidelines that the league makes and everything that the protocols are doing, they kind of make it difficult on us to where they kind of force us in a way to want to get it. … Some people have bad reactions to the vaccine. Nobody likes to talk about that. What happens if one of our players gets the vaccine and can’t play after that? Or they have complications after that? Because there are cases like that.”
The difference between the NBA and other leagues managing the ongoing pandemic challenges, such as the NFL and Major League Baseball, is that basketball is played indoors. Leave it to 72-year-old Gregg Popovich, entering his twilight as coach of the five-time champion San Antonio Spurs, to sound warnings to the ignorant. “There is still a lot of stuff going on out there. You see all the bumps in cases here and there,’’ he said. “You see all the areas where people are not vaccinated. It’s a double-edged sword. We’re trying to do everything we can to make sure we can be safe, which means we’ve got to be disciplined day to day to day to day.”
When the league isn’t dealing with an infectious disease, it is overrun by the Disease of Me. Simmons should have devoted his every waking offseason hour to putting up shots, working with renowned shooting coaches to fix his psychological hiccup. Instead, he sulked after 76ers coach Doc Rivers and star big man Joel Embiid copped to the obvious after an Eastern Conference semifinals loss to Atlanta — Simmons is not a championship point guard, not even close. Embiid was ready to book a private jet with teammates last weekend and convince Simmons to join them in Philadelphia. Alas, his representatives say the divorce papers already have been signed.
Well, what if the 76ers find no takers at their price. Realizing that is the likely conclusion, Rivers, Embiid and operations chief Daryl Morey are stumbling over themselves in publicly begging Simmons to return.
Can they win a title with Simmons? “Yeah, all day. All day. He just does so many things, man," said Rivers, backtracking to say Simmons doesn’t have to be a supreme shooter and scorer. “The Ben Wallaces of the world. It was great to see him go into the Hall of Fame. And the Dennis Rodmans of the world ... help teams win titles and have Hall of Fame careers without being great scorers. I do think Ben can score way more than he has scored, but that's not what makes him great. What makes him great is all the other things he does."
Morey invoked the name of Aaron Rodgers, who returned to the Green Bay Packers after an offseason of slinging rocks at team management. “I think we just know the history of, you can look back at how these things play out … Ben’s a great player. And you know, we expect him back. We expect him to be a 76er,’’ he said. “I would say I watched (Sunday) night a player lead his team to victory when a thousand pounds of digital ink were spilled on how much he would never play for that team again. Look, every situation is different, but we have a lot of optimism that we can make it work here."
“I really hope he changes his mind," Embiid said. "I do love playing with him because he adds so much to our team. We've been building this team around us. I don't see it as “This is my team’. I don't care about any of that."
Embalmed in Los Angeles, Simmons should be ashamed to watch the beg-and-plead charade. But his agent, the omnipotent Rich Paul, is committed to shopping him. This isn’t athlete empowerment. This is professional malpractice. And it is Paul’s longtime friend and mentor, James, who has encouraged players to exert their authority and clout.
Even when not warranted. Still the league’s most influential figure, James could stare down the anti-vaxxers, now that the Lakers finally have confirmed he is vaccinated. “On opening night, all of the players that are currently signed on our roster will be deemed fully vaccinated," basketball boss Rob Pelinka said. “We’re grateful for that."
Pushing 37, LeBron would rather aim for his final title and let an elder statesman do the preaching. “There is no room for players who are willing to risk the health and lives of their teammates, the staff and the fans,’’ said Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, “simply because they are unable to grasp the seriousness of the situation or do the necessary research.’’
A lighter wallet has a way of enlightening the foolish. If Simmons continues to deep-six the Sixers, he will breach pro-rated portions of a max contract that still owes him $147 million. “We're not going to talk about the specifics of fines, things like that,’’ Morey said. “But it's pretty clearly spelled out in his contract what happens."
So much for empowerment.
Clank.
Jay Mariotti, called “the most impacting Chicago sportswriter of the past quarter-century,’’ writes general sports columns for Substack while appearing on some of the 1,678,498 podcasts and shows in production today. He is an accomplished columnist, TV panelist and talk/podcast host. Living in Los Angeles, he has gravitated by osmosis to film projects.