Kyrie Irving was finally allowed to play in the Barclays Center after Mayor Eric Adams lifted the vaccine mandate for athletes not vaccinated that live in New York.
Irving did not have his best game after losing to the Charlotte Hornets on March 27, and during the post-game, he had a lot to say not about his play — but his freedom.
“The point of this season for me was never to just take a stance. It was really to make sure that I’m standing on what I believe in, in freedom,” Irving said to the media.
All season, people have criticized Irving because he didn’t want to take the vaccine to protect others around him, but all Irving wanted to do was stand up for what he believed in, without someone telling him otherwise.
“Freedom, I don’t think that’s a word that gets defined enough in our society, about the freedom to make choices with your life without someone telling you what the f— to do.”
“I’m standing for freedom,” Irving said. “So that’s in all facets of my life. There’s nobody that’s enslaving me, there’s nobody that’s telling me what I’m going to do with my life, and that’s just the way I am. If I get tarnished in terms of my image and people trying to slander my name, those things aren’t things that I forget.”
It still doesn’t seem like Irving gets the big picture in all of this, and why many wanted him to get vaccinated. At the end of the day, Irving won the battle, and he’s now able to play with no restrictions around it.
