Wilson Chandler became the fourth Brooklyn Nets player to be ruled out for the remainder of the 2019-20 season on Sunday. However, unlike Kevin Durant (right Achilles), Kyrie Irving (right shoulder) and Nic Claxton (left shoulder), Chandler wasn’t dealing with an injury.
In fact, the Nets forward had been training with his teammates in Brooklyn in preparation for the Disney World bubble in Florida. But Chandler decided it was best to be at home with his family amidst the novel coronavirus pandemic.
Chandler explained how he came to the conclusion, and what other factors were in play when he appeared on his former Denver Nuggets teammate Jameer Nelson’s podcast, “Court Vision“:
Really, there’s no right or wrong way. Everybody has their own opinion [about] what’s going and what they would do. So there’s no right or wrong answer, so I respect everybody who’s going and everybody who’s not going. But for me, personally, I think the unknown about this whole COVID thing and just having a grandmother who just turned 87 who’s battled all type[s] of illnesses and having young kids, I think it’s more important for me to be at home with my family, taking care of my family. That’s my biggest [factor in my] decision to stay home.
Then if you throw the whole social justice, everything that’s going on with police brutality and with the government and all of that, it just makes it that [much] more difficult.
Chandler felt the Nets handled his decision “very well.” He spoke with Sean Marks on the matter, and the Nets general manager was supportive of Chandler:
Like I told Sean when I spoke to him, I told him I appreciate them for definitely being a player-friendly organization, always helping me an supporting me when I needed it most, making my transition very smooth. Just always being there for me, so I told him I appreciate that. Same thing with [this situation], when I told him, he just said he supported me, wished me well and that they won’t hold it against me at all.
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