Kyrie Irving’s anti-vaccination stance has divided the sports world.
One person who’s not a fan of Irving’s decision not to be vaccinated is sports journalist Stephen A. Smith.
“There’s a whole bunch of people out here, myself included, maybe not you, but a lot of us that had reservations about taking the vaccine,” Smith said during a recent episode of “First Take.”
“Not just because of us, but because of the people that we were going to be around, and more importantly, the obligations that we had. I don’t get vaccinated, I can’t do “First Take.” I don’t do First Take. I’m leaving everybody stranded. Not to mention compromising my own bankroll and bottom line, which I was not going to do,” he continued.
“Let me be very, very clear about that. Okay. I ain’t apologizing for that to a damn soul. All right. That’s how I roll. Having said all of that, even if that were not the case, if I’m a member of a team and we’ve aligned and we’re mission-minded, I’m not going to be the one to jump off the train to compromise the mission. I’m going to be the one that stands pat and is like, ‘Yo, this is what we doing, this is what we got to do.'”
Karen Hunter was recently joined on her show by Tony Award-winner Tonya Pinkins and Dr. Debbye Turner Bell (former Miss America,” where they weighed in on Irving’s decision to remain jab-free.
“I think Kyrie Irving’s going to turn out to be a hero among folk who are resistant to vaccines and masks. And he is willing to sacrifice his career, it appears, to stand on that hill and die on it. And that’s going to turn him into some weird martyr. I don’t know…,” Hunter mused.
Watch the full video above.
