Nets Unsure Of How To Handle Kyrie Irving: "It's a Huge Issue"

Kyrie Irving, at this time, remains steadfast in his refusal to get vaccinated, and was absent for Brooklyn Nets practice again on Tuesday. He is unable to be present due to New York City's vaccination mandate.

How does a team with championship aspirations prepare for the season not knowing whether one of their star players will be available to play in half their games? ESPN’s Brian Windhorst and Adrian Wojnarowski say that the team is trying to figure out how to face that inevitability.

Will the Nets accommodate Irving as a "part-time player"? Sources told Windhorst and Woj that those are the tough decisions they're currently weighing, with no decisions yet.

The Nets are undecided on whether they will accommodate Kyrie Irving as a part-time player this season if he does not get vaccinated, per @wojespn and @WindhorstESPN. pic.twitter.com/ipY6RR3CXK
— SportsCenter (@SportsCenter) October 6, 2021

Head coach Steve Nash was asked if the Nets would consider moving the team practices to another city so that Kyrie could join them, and he said no, "This is our home, this is where we're going to practice, we have almost a whole group." See how he slipped in the word 'almost' there?

Kevin Durant today said he's "envisioning Kyrie being a part of this team," but he added "maybe I'm being naive."

ESPN's Nick Friedell says, "it's a huge issue.... I don't want to hear any excuses if you're the Nets a month from now, that 'Well, we really haven't been together'. If you're not allowing yourselves that time to be together.... I think Kyrie, if the Nets have any kind of struggles, is going to face even more blame."

The Nets play six of their first eight games at home; Kyrie would have to miss those, in the current situation. In a November/December stretch, according to Woj, he would be away from the team for 20 of 26 days.

In fact, there's already a betting site taking action on how many games Kyrie will miss this season:

You can already bet with @BovadaOfficial on how many games Kyrie Irving will miss this season over the Covid-19 regulations pic.twitter.com/jwN4uB028q
— Adam Zagoria (@AdamZagoria) September 28, 2021