Stephen A. Smith called out certain NBA players’ vaccination status during a Kyrie Irving rant Monday on First Take.
While Smith didn’t call out any particular player aside from Irving, the ESPN personality did hint at a handful of players who took the minimum requirement to pass the NBA’s Covid-19 policy.
Smith turned to studio guest J.J. Reddick and proclaimed, “There is a host of players that did not want any part of the vaccine. That is why you had some people taking the Johnson & Johnson vaccine instead of Moderna or Pfizer because it was only one shot.”
The comment stems from earlier remarks regarding Irving’s unwillingness to get the vaccine which has held him out of home games in Brooklyn thanks to the NYC private sector mandate. Smith is surprised to see the blame being shifted away from the superstar guard as this type of behavior would not fly previous generations.
“Do you think for one second that Kyrie would have been able to get away with this if he was playing in the 1980s and 1990s with some of those cats?” Smith asked, “It would have been a problem because they would have been like ‘yo, what do you mean you’re not going to be ready?'”
He then elaborated on his argument by including the vaccine decision of both current teammate Kevin Durant and former teammate James Harden who are both fully vaccinated.
“Theoretically, we would look at it like, ‘we did it, what you doing?’ Okay, dammit I didn’t want, you know KD (Durant) ‘I didn’t want to take it’. Or Harden or somebody ‘I didn’t want to take it,'” Smith said. “All of those things being taken into consideration, you would have had a problem because ‘we all doing it, but you going to say you ain’t doing it. You with us or you not?'”
Smith finished his rant by getting back to the root of the question: should there be some frustration with Irving? To which he replied with an adamant ‘yes’ as Irving’s decision confuses the morning host as to why more players aren’t upset with him, given it could cost KD and the Brooklyn Nets a championship this season.
“We see players going up to Kyrie hugging him, loving on him, you know like you proud of him, you proud of him” Smith shouted. “I’m thinking what about the chip, what about this championship we suppose to be going for. What are we doing?”
Watch the video above via First take
The post Stephen A. Smith Calls Out Vaccination Status of NBA Players in Kyrie Irving Rant first appeared on Mediaite.
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