Charles Barkley has always been a man to speak on every situation, so him talking about the Brooklyn Nets’ handling of Kyrie Irving was right up his alley.
The Brooklyn Nets and Milwaukee Bucks squared off in a contest of Eastern Conference contenders, but without Irving on the floor as he is slated to possibly miss the entire year because of his stance on the vaccine. The Nets recently announced that Irving will not be allowed participate in team activities until he follows the mandate.
On Tuesday night, NBA on TNT analyst Charles Barkley had a message for Irving.
“You don’t get vaccinated just for yourself. You get vaccinated for your family first, you get vaccinated for your teammates second,” Barkley said. “That’s what bothered me about this whole thing. I think everybody should get vaccinated.”
“I really am proud of the Nets for putting their foot down and for saying, ‘no, we’re not going to do this half on and half off.’ Barkley continued. “The only thing that bothers me is he’s still going to make $17 million sitting at home.”
He also took issue with people trying to compare what Irving is doing to what Muhammad Ali did back in his prime.
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“Don’t ever compare anybody to Ali. Ali went three years without boxing when he was the highest paid athlete in the world. This guy gonna make $17 million for sitting at home.”
Giannis Antetokounmpo scored 32 points and the Milwaukee Bucks opened the defense of their first title by beating the Brooklyn Nets 127-104 on Tuesday night.
Kevin Durant led the Nets with 32 points and 11 rebounds. James Harden added 20 points.
