Kareem Abdul-Jabbar slams unvaccinated NBA players and staff, wants league to remove them from teams

By Orel Dizon
Updated: September 26, 2021

The issue of the COVID-19 vaccine has been a major point of contention around the world for the past couple of months.

Los Angeles Lakers legend Kareem Abdul-Jabbar recently called for the NBA to insist players and staff be vaccinated or have them removed from their teams.

“The NBA should insist that all players and staff are vaccinated or remove them from the team,” NBA legend Kareem Abdul-Jabbar told Rolling Stone. “There is no room for players who are willing to risk the health and lives of their teammates, the staff and the fans simply because they are unable to grasp the seriousness of the situation or do the necessary research. What I find especially disingenuous about the vaccine deniers is their arrogance at disbelieving immunology and other medical experts. Yet, if their child was sick or they themselves needed emergency medical treatment, how quickly would they do exactly what those same experts told them to do?”

A majority of NBA players have received the vaccine, according to the league. But some of them, including prominent players, have chosen to not get vaccinated.

The NBA has expressed its desire for the league to return to some semblance of normalcy, where teams do not have to play in empty arenas again. But for that to happen, vaccination of all players and staff seems to be one of the solutions, especially with the Delta variant of COVID-19 causing surges of cases across the nation.

The league will eventually have to deal with the players and staff who are reluctant to get the vaccine for different reasons.

It seems that the Lakers will not face any such problems as general manager Rob Pelinka recently stated that all Lakers players will be fully vaccinated by opening night.