Lakers: NBA Players Who Are Unvaccinated Won't Be Able To Play In Canada
It has been increasingly more difficult for NBA players to play basketball if they choose to remain unvaccinated against the COVID-19 pandemic. Those rules just got even more difficult and now have the full force of the law behind them.
That's a Woj bomb, for sure. If one oversimplified this, the conclusion would be made that once a player entered Canada to play the Raptors, they'd be stuck in Toronto afterward, but per new law in Canada, they'd never arrive there anyway.
Unvaccinated players won't be able to enter Canada to play the Raptors. Even if they did, the US would not allow them back if they were in the US on a work visa. These rules aren't NBA-related. The NBA is bound by the laws of Canada and the United States.
For unvaccinated players, anonymity is also something that won't be given to them, as the NBA has announced that "teams must furnish the league office with a list of unvaccinated players by Friday," according to a memo ESPN was able to obtain.
This only affects a very small amount of players. The NBA has said that 97% of the players are already vaccinated and that 60% of the players have been given the booster as well.
The decision to get vaccinated against a pandemic that has come in large waves and has not dissipated enough to end concerns has become a very divisive subject. Unfortunately for the health and safety of everyone, it has become a politicized topic when there was no need for it to be. The NBA is a business. Aside from having to adhere to the rules of the countries the games are played in, the NBA has the right to run its business however it chooses within those lawful boundaries. Players who refuse to get vaccinated have that right, but the NBA also has the right to disallow them to play.
