Toronto has just joined the list of NBA cities that are taking a hard stance on what activities unvaccinated NBA players are allowed to take part in. According to Shams Charania, this includes massive fines and potential jail time for anyone that is found in breach of local laws. Unvaccinated players will only be allowed to leave their hotels for team-related activities, which sounds like practice and the actual games.

This shouldn’t be an issue for the vast majority of NBA players, as less than a week ago the league announced that over 95% of their players had been vaccinated against Covid-19. There are still some holdouts, like Kyrie Irving and Bradley Beal. Andrew Wiggins of the Golden State Warriors has already elected to take the vaccine, since he was looking at the prospect of being unable to play in any Warriors home games.

As the 2021-22 gets closer, the divide between vaccinated and unvaccinated players continues to loom as a potential issue in locker rooms. As it stands, the league has stated that players who are unable to play in games due local mandates preventing them to take part will not be paid for those contests. 

Again, with such a large proportion of the players being vaccinated, laws in cities like Toronto, San Francisco, and New York shouldn’t be a huge issue. What we’ll have to keep a lookout for is if any other states or cities with NBA teams start enacting stricter vaccination laws and protocols.