When New York City mayor Eric Adams appeared on CNBC earlier this week, he seemed to suggest that no mandates would be altered specifically for Kyrie Irving, and felt changing the private sector mandate, which prevents Irving from playing home games because of his vaccination status, but Sean Marks seems to think that might change soon.
In an interview with the YES Network, the Nets general manager said that the team is still hopeful for vaccine mandates to change and allow Irving to play in the Barclays Center, where he will soon be allowed to attend games as a spectator because of the Key2NYC vaccine mandate being lifted by Adams. But Adams said lifting the private sector mandate that would allow Irving to play would send the wrong message to other City employees, and that he cannot afford for the city to be shut down again. But Marks indicated that he is hoping for a change very soon, perhaps before the end of the week.
"I think like four million other Brooklynites, we're hoping the sooner the better that we can get this team together, and that includes Kyrie, so we're waiting like everyone else to see how these mandates change or how they tweak," Marks said. "Hopefully over the next 24-48 hours, there's some news to what they might look like, and we can get Kyrie back out there. Nobody wants to be out there more than Kyrie."
Getting Irving back would be a massive boost for a Brooklyn team that just got Kevin Durant back, but also just lost Joe Harris for the season. The Nets are trying to fight their way out of a play-in spot with just over a month to go in the regular season, and having Irving for home games would be a huge lift come playoff time, considering the current mandates could leave Irving sidelined for as many as four games in a seven-game series.
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