Getty Kyrie Irving, Brooklyn Nets
If the Nets get it together and go on to Finals glory, the praises of Kevin Durant, Kyrie Irving and friends will be sung from Bay Ridge to Bed-Stuy.
But Brooklyn may also need to reserve a thank you for baseball. At least, some Nets types think so.
While New York City had left in place a vaccine mandate that kept the unvaxxed Irving from playing home games, the fast-approaching start of the baseball season brought an even greater mountain of pressure on Mayor Eric Adams to lift the rule that covered private businesses.
His honor canceled the mandate this week, opening the door for the Nets to field their full squad — or at least as full as they can be until Ben Simmons is able to get past his back problems. The mayor, while recognizing the unfairness of visiting unvaxxed players being allowed to play while unjabbed people on the home team could not, said his decision was based on diminishing COVID cases. But some believe it was based on baseball, too.
“It’s like they were OK that it was just Kyrie being affected,” said one league source. “But there’s no way the city was going to put up with the blowback if there were guys on the Yankees and Mets who couldn’t play.”
There has been no definitive listing of unvaxxed players from those teams in Rob Manfred’s league, though the way Yankee slugger Aaron Judge avoided a recent question regarding his status led people to imply he is among them.
“People around here are just thankful the (baseball) lockout ended,” a Nets source told Heavy.com. “When KD (Kevin Durant) said the mayor was just keeping the mandate because he wanted attention, it worried a lot of people. But we thought it was going to get worked out. We just didn’t know when.”
However, the Nets may still not be out of the vax mandate woods. Though there is a measure of fluidity to the Eastern Conference standings, the safest bet at this moment is that Brooklyn will be in the play-in tournament. If it remains in eighth place, it will face the seventh-seeded Raptors. That game would be in Toronto, which still bars unvaccinated players from taking the court.
If the Nets lose there, they would play the winner of the game between the ninth and tenth seeds (currently Charlotte and Atlanta, respectively) for the eighth and final spot in the regular best-of-seven playoffs.
Hall of Famer’s Championship Prediction: ‘I Have No Idea’
As for how the overall NBA postseason will shake out, even experts have been exercising their trapezius muscles with frequent shrugs.
Piston legend Isiah Thomas knows where the talent lies, but even at that he has some uncertainty.
“As for who’s going to win it, I have no idea. I mean, if Brooklyn could get over the vaccine thing with Kyrie and get him back full-time, then …” Thomas told us just before the expectation that the New York vax mandate would be lifted began hitting the news.
“Brooklyn is loaded. I mean, loaded. They’ve got talent everywhere. They’ve got all the pieces. A lot of teams are in this. Phoenix is playing at another level. They’re a damn good basketball team. But there’s so many. Look at the way Boston is playing right now.
“This is probably the most wide open it’s been, because you do have a lot more good teams now. There are more good teams than there are bad teams when we talk about going into the playoffs.”
Thomas then pointed to a club sinking slowly in the West.
“There’s a LeBron effect,” said the two-time champion and Hall of Famer. “Even though he’s dominating as a scorer and racking up stats, his team is not the dominant team.
“You know, we’re used to over the last 15 years, like, OK, wherever LeBron’s at his team is going to The Finals. So we have one that we can say, OK, they’re going to there, right? And it’s like we’ve gotten comfortable with that, but now since his team isn’t that for sure thing, now you’re looking at all the other teams and everybody else is really good. They’ve all got a chance. There isn’t any team out there that doesn’t think that they can’t beat the others.”
Celtics’ Payton Pritchard: ‘Best Individual Workout’
Payton Pritchard has blossomed with a greater opportunity in Boston. The back-up point guard has been a revelation from the perimeter for a team that was desperately seeking outside shooting to space the floor for the likes of Jayson Tatum and Jaylen Brown.
Payton Pritchard is shooting 51/47/100 over his last 20 games 🔥
Submitted by @SamMasters09
Pritchard had a good rookie season, but his minutes were limited after the Celtics signed Dennis Schroder in the offseason. The playing time reappeared when Schroder was traded at the February deadline, and Pritchard has been taking full advantage.
He has made 17 of 24 treys over his last four games and has shot 47.4 percent from beyond the arc in the 18 games since the deadline. Given a chance to work off some rust, he’s hitting 52.5 percent on his 3-pointers in the last 13.
Among those not surprised at Pritchard’s ascent is a former college assistant who tried (and failed) to recruit the 6-1 guard. The man, now working in the NBA, had his eyes opened very early one morning.
“It was the best individual workout I’ve ever seen because of the intensity he brought,” said the source. “It was a one-hour workout of just all-out hustle at 6 o’clock in the morning. I mean, he went hard. It was game speed for an hour.
“You know, there are people that really like basketball and people that LOVE basketball, and Payton LOVES basketball. That’s why he is who he is. He’s always going to find a way to succeed.”