W.hen you grew up in the family of an NBA professional whose career was filled with a haze of unfulfilled dreams and lots of cocaine, you learned early on what it was: the pressure of expectations of the American public. Which is why you develop a strong defensive reflex when you finally embark on the same career as your father, but after a few years of employment can hardly show anything that would justify the huge salary of 31 million dollars.
There is no other explanation why Andrew Wiggins, the 26-year-old winger of the Golden State Warriors, steadfastly refused to give journalists a simple answer to a simple question a few days ago. They wanted to know why he wasn’t getting vaccinated against the Covid 19 virus. “That’s none of your business,” he said with a defiant face, as if the precautions against infecting others in a pandemic were a purely private matter.
No participation in home games
A few days earlier, according to media reports, the league had denied him an exemption for alleged religious reasons and thus exposed him to the consequences that threatened with the start of the new season on October 19. Because the Warriors based in San Francisco are subject to the requirements of the state of California. This strictly requires that all participants and visitors to events in closed rooms must be vaccinated.
As long as Wiggins refuses, however, he cannot play home games and, due to an NBA decree that affects all vaccinators in this situation, loses the corresponding portion of his annual salary at every game. This also applies to a number of away games, such as encounters on the east coast against the New York Knicks and the Brooklyn Nets with the same state requirements.
Mixed reactions to vaccination refusals
The Canadian Wiggins is one of the exceptional cases among the more than 400 NBA players, because the vast majority are vaccinated. But he’s by no means the only one. The most prominent anti-Vaxxer is Kyrie Irving of the Brooklyn Nets, who accepts a loss of $ 400,000 in revenue for every home game to be sidelined. An attitude that he has so far not justified with any sound explanation. Quote: “I would like to keep that to myself.”
One of the people trying to explain his behavior is Jonathan Isaac from the Orlando Magic, the club of the two Wagner brothers Moritz and Franz in Berlin. The dark-skinned Isaac was already out of line a year ago when he joined the players’ protests against police brutality Quarantine play-offs at Disney World withdrawn. In the meantime, like almost 80 other NBA players, he had been infected with Covid-19. He now believes that this will adequately protect him from the consequences of a new infection. An attitude that reflects the lack of interest in the possible consequences for other people in his immediate vicinity.
The reactions to those who refused to vaccinate are mixed. The clearest position so far has only been taken by one former: Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, the most successful basket shooter in the history of the NBA. The league should simply “insist that all players and club employees are vaccinated or released from the teams. There is no place for players willing to risk the health and life of their team-mates and fans, ”he told Rolling Stone magazine. What he finds “particularly insincere” is “the arrogance with which they question the state of science and the assessment of medical experts”.
LeBron James, the most prominent NBA professional, who has spoken out often and clearly on sociopolitical issues, tends to swarm around the vaccination mandate. After initial skepticism, he himself had the protective injection given. But in what others do and don’t want to interfere, he said this week. “You have to do what is best for you and your family.” No wonder his attitude has long since become the maxim of the players’ union. Against their resistance, the league cannot oblige the active members to have a vaccination under labor law.
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