Inside the NBA's vaccine civil war: Will Kyrie skip home games? Has the league caved to players? Does one player even get how masks work? And what's with that Moderna conspiracy theory in locker rooms?
Spoke to players+execs+docs+Kareem for @RollingStone: https://t.co/NMbaygxQcz pic.twitter.com/Qzbf7hX42q
— Matt Sullivan (@sullduggery) September 26, 2021
Rolling Stone: Does one NBA player even understand how masks work?
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September 26, 2021 2 Comments
Irving, who serves as a vice president on the executive committee of the players’ union, recently started following and liking Instagram posts from a conspiracy theorist who claims that “secret societies” are implanting vaccines in a plot to connect Black people to a master computer for “a plan of Satan.” This Moderna microchip misinformation campaign has spread across multiple NBA locker rooms and group chats, according to several of the dozen-plus current players, Hall-of-Famers, league executives, arena workers and virologists interviewed for this story over the past week.
We knew who Trump was before he was elected president. The players knew who Kyrie was before they elected him VP. Thinking either was a serious thoughtful and reasonable person was silly and naive. And the result was people dying who didn’t need to.
Young players would be wise to listen to a pro’s pro like Kareem, whose actions have always been of a leader who cared rather than a flake who was just allowing himself to do whatever he waned. Sad times for the NBA, which was once the pro sports leader in dealing with Covid.