NBA legend Kareem Abdul-Jabbar spoke with ABC News Live Wednesday about the vaccination status among NBA players.
The league, which has not implemented a mandate among team members, said 90% of all players are vaccinated. However, some of the holdouts include stars like Bradley Beal and Andrew Wiggins.
Abdul-Jabbar told ABC News' Phil Lipof that he believes the players refusing to get vaccinated are being "very irresponsible."
"If you care for your family or the people that you work with, and have to spend a lot of time with, you will get vaccinated," Abdul-Jabbar said.
He added that this should especially be true among Black athletes, noting that COVID-19 has affected Black Americans the most, so promoting vaccinations is important for the community.
"It's like an extension of Black Lives Matter," Abdul-Jabbar said. "Most of the people who are dying are black people. Most of the people who are losing their jobs and being negatively affected in other ways economically are Black Americans. So the Black community, who has a great communication going on with their athletes, they need to get wise to this and Black athletes can do a lot to to change the template."