Orlando Magic’s Jonathan Isaac at center of NBA’s vaccine discussion

Orlando Magic forward Jonathan Isaac is not afraid to stand out.

It is hard for a 7-footer to sneak into the background. The only thing that has kept him out of the spotlight is his recovery from injury that has occurred behind closed doors.

As the season gets closer, fans have only been excited for his possible return and the joy and impact he can bring to the court. Isaac has long been a fan-favorite player for his play on the court and the promise he provides. Not to mention his work in the community.

During the early days of the pandemic as schools and everything else shut down, Isaac organized meal deliveries for children who relied on school to give them daily meals.

Isaac is not afraid to stand out.

But Isaac is beginning to stand out for the wrong reasons. And while everyone has to come to the decision to take the COVID-19 vaccine in their own time and for their own reasons, Isaac as a team leader is taking the heat for remaining unvaccinated and seemingly spreading misinformation in the process.

Orlando Magic forward Jonathan Isaac was quoted in a Rolling Stone article expressing vaccine hesitancy. It is a decision he has to come to on his own, but the consequences are clearly far-spreading.

On the eve of NBA training camps opening and in the midst of a surge of COVID-19 cases with the advent of the delta variant, reports suggest the league is somewhere near 80-90-percent vaccinated. Executives seem optimistic that most marquee players will be fully vaccinated by the time the season starts — especially with local restrictions in New York and San Francisco preventing even hometown players from playing without vaccine confirmation.

Still, there is reportedly a clear fight brewing with a small but powerful group of players that includes Kyrie Irving, an executive vice president with the NBPA, that is resisting calls to get the vaccine.

According to Matt Sullivan of Rolling Stone, requiring all players to get vaccinated was a non-starter for the union. Never mind that the league is requiring all coaches, officials and team personnel who interact with players or are near the court to be vaccinated. The players are the lone holdouts.

According to this report, Isaac is among those who are unvaccinated. He told Rolling Stone he felt unvaccinated players were being bullied into a decision, while casting doubt on the work of scientists through the lens of human fallibility — saying, according to the report that “you can’t always put your trust in people.”

Rolling Stone quotes Isaac as saying he questions the efficacy of the vaccine in conjunction with a mask mandate or social distancing wondering why players can play a game against each other and be in close proximity there and then still have to be socially distant on the bus.

The reasoning for this is to try to limit exposure as much as possible while recognizing the inherent risks of playing a physical sport in the midst of a pandemic.

The Rolling Stone article suggests Isaac started researching the vaccine on his own in the spring and formed some of his opinions from watching the disinformation spread by former President Donald Trump.

It also said he studied black history which indeed has a long record of the U.S. government and American medical industry mistreating black citizens. That is something the nation is still trying to overcome with vaccination rates still lagging within the black community.

Although Kareem Abdul-Jabbar’s statements in the article saying there is no room in the league for players willing to risk the life and health of teammates should put a lot of that concern to rest considering his history of activism and place in league history.

The article paints Irving in the worst light as his aunt, speaking to the reporter on Irving’s thinking, spewed clearly false conspiracy theories as to why he has avoided taking the vaccine while suggesting Irving will look to skirt or ignore New York law preventing unvaccinated players from playing in their home market — the New York Knicks, to their credit, announced their whole team was vaccinated.

Isaac responded on Twitter on Sunday morning with a still somewhat vague answer as backlash grew around him:

The individual choice and faith

Jonathan Isaac is right that everyone has the right to decide when and if to take the vaccine. Never mind the public benefit and safety of the vaccine — the methods used to create the COVID-19 vaccine has been studied and used for decades.

Everyone should be respected to reach this important decision in their own time and for their own reasons. Just as businesses and industries have the right to protect their customers and employees by requiring confirmation that a person is not carrying an easily communicable and potentially deadly disease.

Vaccine mandates have long been considered legal — think of all the vaccines you have to take to attend public school — and those should not be at issue if the NBA ever simply mandated a vaccine. That is an action plenty of people think the league should just do.

For now, the approach the nation has taken is to encourage and inform the citizenry about the benefits of the vaccine.

Everyone recognizes the powerful impact athletes can have on influencing public opinion — something else Abdul-Jabbar speaks directly on in the article.

Isaac may have more to say on this when the Magic meet for Media Day on Monday.

But at the center of this is faith and the role it plays for Isaac and the role it is playing in spreading misinformation about the vaccine.

Faith is something that drives Isaac in everything he does. That particular brand of devotion is not for everyone. But it is something to respect about Isaac as a person.

It guides him through his life and gives him answers to life’s biggest questions. Especially considering the injuries he has faced, Isaac has remained optimistic and upbeat about attacking the obstacles in his career. His faith deepened in his rookie year as he recovered from a sprained ankle that would not heal enough to get him back on the court.

With all the injuries Isaac has faced — he has played only one full season in his first four years in his career — it is incredible Isaac is still so optimistic about life. That is strength. And Isaac’s faith gives him a ton of it. It is an admirable trait from the young forward.

Isaac is not afraid to use his faith to guide his actions. And he has found his own answers to several big questions through his devotion and, it seems, his belief in the goodness of people.

In the Magic’s first game in the bubble, as everyone else kneeled to protest racial injustice and to support the wave of protests occurring throughout the country, Isaac stood with his warmup jersey on. He was the only Magic player to stand.

He explained after the game he used the moment to pray and he felt kneeling would not fix the problems in the world. He explained to reporters his belief that the world’s problems could only be solved through coming together in prayer.

It was a hopeful explanation, although not satisfactory to many. But his reasons were his own and everyone on his team respected them. And that is ultimately what mattered.

He was ordained as a minister — his nickname, the “Minister of Defense,” is not just a fancy moniker — and is active within his church. That has helped him with his own charitable work both in Orlando and abroad with Project Life.

Isaac is a truly good person and citizen in Orlando and beyond.

Doing good for all

That might be why this has hit a bit differently for fans and has been met with lots of disappointment. Everyone knows how important he is to the franchise on the court and what a good representative he is for the city off of it.

But the vaccine has clearly helped slow the spread of a virus that has killed more than 688,000 Americans and more than 53,00 Floridians in the last 18 months.

Vaccine hesitancy has clearly led to a surge in the virus as the nation tried to come out from lockdowns and eager politicians sought a return to normal life, sometimes too quickly and sometimes while continuing to spread disinformation.

The vaccine works and it has proven safe. Even breakthrough cases with vaccinated patients have far better outcomes — milder symptoms, fewer deaths and far fewer trips to the ICU. The science is pretty firmly in the vaccine’s favor.

Everyone has to come to this decision on their own. All anyone can do is provide good information. And the hope out of all this is that Isaac is provided accurate information to create an informed decision. And that he is allowing others to come to their own decisions.

The 2021 season was especially grating because of the constant testing and safety protocols. It is understandable that no one wants to go through that gauntlet again.

Undoubtedly though, vaccine hesitancy is hurting this country and its recovery from this deadly pandemic. The NBA were leaders on this front in the early days of the pandemic by pulling off the bubble experiment and setting testing protocols the rest of the sports world followed.

Everyone wants to see the NBA lead on this again, rather than holding the world back. The league clearly wants to maintain a good relationship with its players, and so they are avoiding a mandate. Now, they just have to try to find a way to provide good information to create informed decisions.

It may well be a matter of faith and belief the league can get it done despite this apparent hesitancy.

You can learn more about the COVID-19 vaccine from the CDC and look up where you can get the shot in Florida from the state’s department of health.