NYC Mayor-Elect Says Kyrie Irving, Nets Need To Figure Things Out Themselves

As election results across the country came in Tuesday, at least some in the New York area must have wondered how the mayoral race would impact the Brooklyn Nets.

New York City mayor-elect Eric Adams said he’s revisit the COVID-19 vaccine mandate during his series of media appearances Wednesday morning after his victory — the same mandates that have kept Kyrie Irving off the court to this point.

In an interview with CNN’s Wolf Blitzer on Friday night, Adams basically said the Nets and Irving need to figure it out on their own.

“New York City is not going to change their rule, and again, it’s up to the NBA and Kyrie to come to an understanding on how to keep him on the Nets,” Adams said, via Kristian Winfield of the New York Daily News.

“This is something that the NBA — if they want to perform in the city ––this is the agreement they made. So I believe it’s up to the NBA and Kyrie to come to an understanding about how they want to get through this. And I believe they can come to a resolution.”

The new mayor is a Nets fan, but it looks like he isn’t showing his personal bias here.

Given current mandates in NYC and Irving’s unvaccinated status, he is prohibited from playing home games for the Brooklyn Nets at the Barclays Center. However, ownership will not let him participate at all unless he can be there full-time for the Nets by getting the vaccine.

Irving doesn’t seem likely to do that, and it will be interesting to see how the relationship between him and the team is impacted by this, given Irving would be eligible to play for a number of teams in the NBA due to current mandates in other markets.

But prominent athletes continue to stand up against mandates, with NFL quarterback Aaron Rogers on Friday explaining the reason behind his unvaccinated status on “The Pat McAfee Show.”