No player in professional sports has taken a stand against vaccine mandates like Brooklyn Nets point guard Kyrie Irving. He has been unwavering and unapologetic in his beliefs.

For a while, the target of woke mainstream sports media outlets like ESPN and commentators such as Stephen A. Smith was Golden State Warrior Andrew Wiggins. He was refusing the vaccine, had his religious exemption denied, was vilified for his stance, and then bullied into getting the jab. Wiggins explained in an interview after a preseason game, “It’s not something I wanted to do… but I was kind of forced to.”

After woke mainstream sports media chewed Wiggins up and spit him out, they found their next target. The new target was Kyrie Irving. To them, he’s now public enemy #1.

So why these two, you ask? What about Michael Porter Jr. of the Denver Nuggets? Bradley Beal of the Washington Wizards? Jonathan Isaac of the Orlando Magic?

The answer is, both San Francisco and New York have mandated the COVID vaccine. NBA insider Shams Charania explains what this means for Golden State Warriors, New York Knicks, and Brooklyn Nets players:

The craziest part, opposing players traveling from out of town aren’t held to the same ridiculous standard. They can waltz in unvaccinated and play with no problem while Warriors, Knicks, and Nets players are told they can’t play in their team’s home games. Remember, the league doesn’t have a league-wide mandate, and importantly, all of these players competed against each other last season without vaccine mandates. This is simply teams, players, executives, and staff bending the knee to tyrannical, totalitarian governments in the most Liberal cities in the country.

This ongoing saga started with the Nets telling Kyrie that he couldn’t practice with the team and was not allowed to play in home games at Barclays Center.

Nets Head Coach Steve Nash responded to Kyrie refusing the vaccine saying, “I think we recognize he’s not playing home games… we’re going to have to for sure play without him this year. So it just depends on when, where, and how much.”

Then, late last week, Irving was briefly allowed to practice with the team because it was determined that the team’s practice facility was “a private office building” instead of an indoor gym that would have fallen under the city’s mandates.

Here’s where the tide really turned…

On Tuesday, October 12, Nets General Manager Sean Marks announced that Irving was banned from the team until he could be a “full participant,” AKA until he gets vaccinated.

After a couple days of silence from Irving, he responded to his critics and the announcement from his GM on a 20-minute-ish Instagram Live that had over 100,000 active viewers.

What makes Kyrie Irving’s protest so admirable is that while he has received countless critiques, stands to lose hundreds of thousands of dollars per game missed, endorsement deals could be affected, has been ostracized by his team, he is standing firm. He is holding the line.

While other players have admirably pushed back on mandates in press conferences individually, asked sports media members why they don’t talk about natural immunity or antibodies, and supported teammates/fellow players right to choose, no player has had a backbone, stood firm in their convictions and been a voice for millions of Americans that have had to make the decision between the jab and their job quite like Kyrie Irving.

We applaud and stand with you. #HoldTheLineKyrie