Brooklyn Nets: Kyrie Irving Leads Charge Against NBA Restart

The 2019-20 NBA season is scheduled to start back up on July 30th, but now Brooklyn Nets guard Kyrie Irving is trying to stop that.

The Brooklyn Nets are one of the 22 teams scheduled to start the season back up on July 30th in Orlando, but Kyrie Irving is leading the charge to prevent that. Sitting at 30-34, the Nets are currently the seventh-ranked team in the East.

The format is as so:

• No fans
• All games played in Orlando
• Eight games per team to determine playoff teams/seeding starting July 30th
• If the ninth seed is within four games of the eighth seed, there is a play-in tournament
  • The eighth seed must win one game, the ninth seed must win two in order to advance
• Playoffs are played as normal following the eight games and potential play-in tournament

There are only nine teams in the East and 13 in the West, with the Nets being the seventh seed, they are one of the three teams in the East at risk of potentially having to play in a play-in tournament.

So now the question is: what’s the problem?

As mentioned earlier; Kyrie Irving is leading the charge against finishing the 2019-20 NBA season. The reason for this is because of his concerns with returning to play and the risks that it brings.

"“I don’t support going into Orlando. I’m not with the systematic racism and the bullsh*t. Something smells a little fishy.”Per Shams Charania"

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Because of his concerns for what’s going on in our nation right now, and the added risk of the NBA’s bubble plans in Orlando, Irving led a call of over 80 players to voice his concerns about the current plan, and weigh the opinions of other players.

Even if the NBA season does resume according to the current plan, Irving wouldn’t play as he continues to recover from shoulder surgery. Now, he is pushing for change within the United States and wants players to choose not to play.

The question then becomes; what if Irving convinces other players not to play? Would the NBA still play on, or would they cancel the return-to-play plan and pick up with the 2020-21 season?

Following the call, we saw Kyle Kuzma say that Irving’s opinions do not represent his own, and others’ as well:

The next couple of days are going to be very interesting as I would expect some players to announce their concerns, while others announce their intentions to play. I would imagine that most players will side with the latter, due to the fact that if they are returning to play, their team is in a decent position to win a championship.

What do you think will happen, will the players who don’t want to play outweigh those who did? Maybe vice versa? Let us know in the comments below or on Twitter at @EmpireWritesBck!