On Tuesday, barely 48 hours after Nets head coach Steve Nash discussed Kyrie Irving's return to practice and potential future, GM Sean Marks and the team issued a statement that they are benching Kyrie until he is "able to be a full participant."
Essentially, that either means until Kyrie receives at least one dose of a COVID-19 vaccination, because New York isn't the only NBA locale with a vaccination mandate in place (San Francisco is one example) meaning he won't be a "full participant" until either he's vaccinated or all mandates are lifted.
And later Tuesday, Marks revealed to the media that said decision came down to him and Nets owner Joe Tsai.
"We, as always, involve a lot of people in this. But this decision came down to the two of us and it's what's best for the organization in this point in time," he said. "I think we had everything on the board. We looked at everything. When you make a decision like this, it's one you don't want to do hastily. Again, involve all the parties, think about the variety of all different outcomes. I think we all know what our objective is this year and how a decision like this maybe affects that ultimate objective."
The ultimate objective is of course an NBA Championship, but Marks also noted he had to look at both the short-term and long-term scenarios: the long-term being, perhaps, that Irving would miss more games than he would play if vaccine mandates carried through next summer.
"They're never easy decisions, but at the end of the day, I think we're looking at putting a group of people out there that are going to be able to participate fully, and that's what this comes down to," Marks said. "We're not looking for partners that are going to be half-time. I don't think that would be fair not only on the team, and staff, and ownership, and fans. But, to be quite frank, not fair on Kyrie, either."
Despite the benching, Irving will only lose salary for home games, even with mandates in place that would restrict his participation in other locales. And, while he obviously would love to have Kyrie on the court sooner than later, Marks is leaving it up to Irving's personal choice.
"Kyrie's made it clear he has a choice in this matter and it's ultimately going to be up to him what he decides," Marks said. "We respect the fact that he has a choice. He can make his own right to choose. Again, what's best for the organization is the path that we're taking and I don't want to speak for Kyrie. At the right time, I'm sure he will address his feelings and what the path may be for him."
So how will the Nets prepare now that they know he's out indefinitely, and not just sporadically?
"Without a doubt, losing a player of Kyrie's caliber hurts from a talent perspective, but I don't know that I want to address the hypotheticals of what may happen in the future here," Marks said. "I think this is pretty raw, pretty fresh. I think we got to let the dust settle. The hope is that we have Kyrie back. We'll welcome him back with open arms under a different set of circumstances. We need to wait and see how that transpires, but in the meantime, we need to focus on the 16 players that are going to be on this roster moving forward with us."
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