- Mavericks’ offseason begins with Kyrie Irving’s decision and only gets more complicated The Athletic
- LeBron doesn’t close the door on playing for the Mavericks with Irving and Doncic: I’ll think Marca English
- Nick Wright Thinks Kyrie Irving Intentionally Leaked The Story Of LeBron James To The Dallas Mavericks Fadeaway World
- Kyrie Irving’s LeBron James Trade Recruitment a Ploy to Sign Mavs Long-Term Contract? Sports Illustrated
- 8 Potential Dallas Mavericks free agent targets with ties to Kyrie Irving The Smoking Cuban
- View Full Coverage on Google News
Tag Archives: Irvings
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- LeBron James, Kyrie Irving selfishly disrupting NBA Finals with preposterous Mavericks team-up rumors CBS Sports
- Kyrie Irving has reportedly reached out to LeBron James about joining Mavericks | NBA | UNDISPUTED Skip and Shannon: UNDISPUTED
- What does the recent LeBron James news mean for the New Orleans Pelicans? Pelican Debrief
- Kyrie Irving shuts down notion he wants to join LeBron on the Lakers | NBA | FIRST THINGS FIRST First Things First
- View Full Coverage on Google News
Kyrie Irving’s return to basketball won’t put an end to the controversy he started
NEW YORK — There were two microphones Sunday night, and each one told a story all its own.
The one on the platform between Atlantic Ave. and Flatbush, between the subway station and an arena, belonged to one man as he spoke to scores of men in purple and yellow sweatshirts lined up in unison to listen, as well as to passersby going to that night’s Nets–Grizzlies game or just minding their own business. The voice coming from that microphone was unceasing, speaking of biblical passages, of his people, of the Holocaust in Germany, comparing it to the one they have faced and remarking it was not quite as bad. He said they were the real Jews, “not you nominals.” He was, if not the leader of the group of some 300 members of Israelites United In Christ who settled outside the Barclays Center for hours Sunday, at least its voice. He talked for hours on a blisteringly cold night as the rest gave out pamphlets proselytizing for their cause, giving their warped truth of antisemitism, the kind that caused the group to be flagged by the Southern Poverty Law Center.
Inside the arena, a few hours later, Kyrie Irving took to a microphone again, a routine but fraught occurrence by now for the Nets star. The group that had taken up so much space and noise around Barclays, lining the streets, unmistakable and unavoidable, had come not because of him, but in response to him. Irving had tweeted out a link to the Amazon page for an antisemitic movie, refused to apologize for it and showed no remorse. Four days later, caught in the middle of a storm, he played at home, and this group appeared, too. He did not play again until Sunday night, having been suspended by the Nets in the interim. Just as he returned from a 19-day absence from the Nets, they did, too.
Of all the criticism lobbed at Irving after the tweet that started it all, the most poignant and real was not that he was actually antisemitic or full of hate. It was that he had shared a piece of propaganda, giving oxygen to the kind of tropes and lies that Jews have faced for centuries, and refused to condemn it forcefully and quickly, choosing elliptical restraint instead until he was finally suspended and could not ignore the criticism anymore. Irving may be about love and peace, as he insists, but these were the consequences that many feared. A diminishment of pain, of death, of the horrors that ruined the lives of so many men and women and families, for generations. Right there, on Atlantic Ave. and Flatbush.
Video via Mike Vorkunov / The Athletic
By Sunday night, Irving had already submitted his apologies. He had made one in an Instagram post two weeks ago, but after he had been cast away by the Nets’ organization. He had made another one that afternoon, in his return to the Nets, after, he said, speaking with Jewish leaders. Irving still bristled at times, indicating he felt misunderstood and mislabeled, but he was regretful and meant no harm, he said.
Now, Irving wanted only to focus on the game, a 127-112 win over the Grizzlies in which he had played 26 minutes and scored 14 points. He had missed his teammates and his coaches, he said, and they welcomed him back with ease. Jacque Vaughn, newly hired as head coach while Irving was away, said he laid out the ground rules to Irving in a chat that day.
“It’s about hooping, and I use that word right there that from this day on, that’s what we’re going to be about,” Vaughn said. “Basketball is factual. You get the rebound, that’s a fact. You box out, that’s a fact. You make the shot, that’s a fact. We’re going to make this thing factual. It’s going to be about basketball and we’ll live in that space.”
As if Irving’s slipperiness with facts was not the reason this had metastasized into the situation he and the Nets found themselves in this month. It was hard to say the Nets had returned to normal just yet. The scene inside the press conference room at Barclays on Sunday indicated how irregular this all was. As Irving spoke, Shetellia Riley Irving, his agent and stepmother, and Tamika Tremaglio, the NBPA executive director, listened along just feet away, as did other union officials.
When a reporter laid out the scene above, of the demonstrators who had come out in support, Irving demurred. That conversation would be for another day, he said. This press conference just about the game.
Just hours earlier, Irving had proclaimed he had come to realize the voice he carries, the one with 4.7 million Twitter followers and the pedestal that comes attached to international fame, and now he hoped to harness it.
“This is a big moment for me, because I’m able to learn throughout this process that the power of my voice is very strong,” Irving said that afternoon. “The influence that I have within my community is very strong, and I want to be responsible for that. In order to do that, you have to admit when you’re wrong in instances where you hurt people, and it impacts them.”
But when another reporter asked if the demonstrators had come out as a consequence of what he had done, he demurred once more.
“Again,” he said. “I’m just here to focus on the game.”
The time for mea culpas may be over, at least for Irving. Basketball questions will soon fill the vacuum left behind by the chaos of the last few weeks. A quotidian trance will take over after the uneasiness that unsettled a franchise.
Irving missed eight games in a most unusual way, punished not for what he said, but what he then refused to say despite chance after chance to do so. He said that he may still seek legal options to rectify the eight games of pay he lost, though there is no timetable in place for that process. NBPA leaders, like union vice president Jaylen Brown, may have taken issue with his suspension and the terms for his comeback, but the NBPA will not file a grievance with the league against the Nets, Tremaglio told The Athletic.
Protesters from the Israelites United In Christ line up at Barclays Center in support of Kyrie Irving. (Mike Vorkunov / The Athletic)
Now, Irving has his voice back. Others have already heard it and found it as an opportunity to amplify their own. It was hard not to hear it in Brooklyn Sunday night.
But he will use it on his own terms, he reminded everyone Sunday night. He, ultimately, picks when to make the most of the platform he has built. Irving has sought atonement, he has sought forgiveness and clarity, and after nearly a month of controversy, he was asked when he will use that microphone to discuss what is his said in his name.
“I would like to be on a platform where I could openly share how I feel without being harshly criticized or being labeled or dealing with outside perceptions that have nothing to do with me,” he said. “Again, I said this morning, I just want to elaborate on just everyone getting to know who Kai is, what AI is, and what I represent in my tribe. That’s it.”
(Photo of Kyrie Irving: Nathaniel S. Butler / NBAE via Getty Images)
GO DEEPER
Koreen: Why Kyrie Irving’s apology matters, even if it doesn’t absolve him
Nets owner Joe Tsai condemns Kyrie Irving’s tweeting of antisemitic video
Kyrie Irving’s latest venture into conspiracy theories and controversy has drawn condemnation from Brooklyn Nets team owner Joe Tsai and his own team for its clear antisemitism.
On Thursday, the Nets point guard tweeted out a link to a documentary called “Hebrews to Negroes: Wake Up Black America,” based on a book of the same name by Ronald Dalton Jr. As Rolling Stone explains it, the documentary puts forward “ideas in line with more extreme factions of the Black Hebrew Israelites, which have a long history of misogyny, homophobia, xenophobia, Islamophobia, and especially antisemitism.”
Making use of fabricated quotes and debunked hoaxes, the documentary and book reportedly lay out a number of antisemitic tropes to claim Jews control the world and are responsible for centuries of Black oppression.
A day after Irving tweeted the link, Tsai posted a response outright stating the movie to be “full of anti-semitic disinformation” and suggested Irving had promoted hate.
The Nets also released their own statement to Nets Daily, saying they had “no tolerance” for “hate speech”
“The Brooklyn Nets strongly condemn and have no tolerance for the promotion of any form of hate speech. We believe that in these situations, our first action must be open, honest dialogue. We thank those, including the [Anti Defamation League], who have been supportive during this time.”
Irving has obviously never been afraid to speak his mind, but his public persona has steadily warped in recent years, starting with the infamous battle over his refusal to get vaccinated last season and more recently posting a video promoting conspiracy theorist Alex Jones, a man recently found liable for $1 billion in damages to Sandy Hook families for promoting the lie that the massacre was a hoax.
The Nets have been navigating Irving’s extracurricular activities for a while, but have never gone as far as Tsai outright calling him out for spreading antisemitic disinformation. What further action that leads to, either on the Nets’ part or Irving’s, remains to be seen.
The Irving tweet came amid what had been a surprisingly normal season the court so far, given that he and Kevin Durant tried to leave the team during the offseason. Irving has played in all five of the team’s games (never a certainty) while averaging 29.3 points per game.
Kyrie Irving’s shadow looms over Lakers after team’s bizarre set of moves to open NBA free agency
An idealized 2022-23 Los Angeles Lakers roster needed three things around LeBron James and Anthony Davis: shooting, defense and proven playoff viability. Less than a day into free agency, the Lakers have filled all but two of their available roster spots, but to say that they’ve addressed any of those needs would be premature at best.
Lonnie Walker IV, who will sign using the taxpayer mid-level exception, shot just 31.4 percent from behind the arc last season. The three remaining deals were for Troy Brown Jr, Juan Toscano-Anderson and Damian Jones — three players who combined to hit just 85 3-pointers last season. That’s only six more than Russell Westbrook made on his own.
Among most major metrics, only Toscano-Anderson ranks as above average defensively. FiveThirtyEight’s RAPTOR and DunksAndThrees’ EPM both frown on the non-Toscano-Anderson trio, and ESPN’s Real Plus-Minus is even more damning, ranking Walker 119th among 123 qualifying defensive shooting guards and Jones 64th among qualifying centers.
Between the four of them, they’ve played 147 combined playoff minutes in their careers. For comparison, the last time a hobbled LeBron James was in the playoffs back in 2021, he played 220 minutes in a single series against the Phoenix Suns. Toscano-Anderson and Jones have both been on Warriors championship teams. Neither could carve out rotation roles on them.
In other words … little of what the Lakers did in Day 1 of free agency makes much sense yet. Their only spending tool above the minimum salary was the mid-level exception and it’s gone. So are 13 of their 15 total roster spots and both of their two-way slots. Yet not one major need was addressed. So what gives?
The obvious perspective here is that the Lakers are overcorrecting. Last year’s roster was the oldest in the NBA. It was as slow as it was injury prone, and the infusion of youth and athleticism these signings bring could solve those problems. There’s something to that, especially in light of the jump Malik Monk made last season.
The Lakers are surely hoping that one or two of these players can similarly grow on a roster built around James and Anthony Davis. It’s not bad logic. Walker has great physical tools and a 6-10 wingspan. Defensive improvement is entirely plausible. Jones is coming off his best season as a pro and did so on a bizarrely constructed Kings roster. His role will be clarified on these Lakers. Even Toscano-Anderson probably has more to show than the Warriors allowed last season. It’s not his fault he played on a team with a $376 million payroll. The Warriors were too deep to rely on him in the playoffs. The Lakers aren’t. They aren’t going to hit four home runs here, but if just one of these players pops as Monk did, they’ll have found a serious bargain.
But Monk was a bargain, too, and the Lakers still missed the playoffs. The goal of the offseason is not to strike oil a few times, but to build a complete and coherent roster. The Lakers don’t have one. They’re betting they can still piece one together. Dave McMenamin reported after the flurry that the team’s next priority is shooting. It’s not hard to figure out where that might be coming from.
Slot Kyrie Irving onto this roster and suddenly things make a bit more sense. That is especially true when you consider the $10 million gap between his salary and Russell Westbrook’s. Could one of Brooklyn’s spare shooters fill that void? Maybe the tax the Nets need to pay to secure maximal draft capital from the Lakers is either Joe Harris or Seth Curry as well.
Irving alone fixes the geometry of the floor for the Lakers. Suddenly you can get away with two-big lineups featuring Jones or significant on-ball opportunities for Walker (or Talen Horton-Tucker) because Westbrook’s defender isn’t clogging up the paint for them. Maybe Toscano-Anderson or Stanley Johnson can get away with playing starter minutes as a limited offensive option because their defense will supplement an unstoppable offensive trio. Irving’s postseason credentials need no explanation. He made a Finals-clinching shot.
Irving doesn’t solve every problem. Those final few rosters spots should probably go to more experienced players. Beyond the theoretical big three of James, Davis and Irving, not a single Laker has proven capable of a playoff rotation spot. That makes taking advantage of the salary gap between Irving and Westbrook essential in securing another player of some value. But the outline of a sensible roster begins to form.
Walker and Horton-Tucker could compete for the “down-hill attacker with defensive upside” role. Johnson and Toscano-Anderson would fight for forward minutes. Another center will presumably be added to play the minutes Jones doesn’t, though Davis will also play some center. Kendrick Nunn is your backup point guard. Austin Reaves gets real minutes at shooting guard.
Whoever doesn’t win a rotation spot becomes deadline fodder. The 2022 Lakers were extremely limited traders because they had almost no matching salary. But adding Walker at $6.5 million while retaining Horton-Tucker and Nunn at mid-tier salaries and possibly bringing in another player from the Nets gives them a bit more flexibility to improve in the middle of the season. If minutes are available, the buyout market should be friendly as well.
It’s not a perfect roster by any stretch of the imagination. The defense remains problematic in almost any construction. But with Irving on board, the basic plan suddenly makes sense: Your star trio is so talented and fits together so well that you can afford to gamble on the other roster spots knowing that you can keep the ones that work and trade the ones that don’t. It’s a risky approach to roster-building, but considering where the Lakers are starting from, there just wasn’t a cleaner option. The players the Lakers signed don’t make sense next to Westbrook, but in 2022, not many players do, and the ones who could weren’t coming to Los Angeles for $6.5 million.
This doesn’t come close to guaranteeing an Irving trade. Two days ago such a deal felt impossible. There’s still no telling how much draft capital — if any — the Lakers are willing to surrender for a player whom the rest of the league doesn’t seem to want, and if anybody else gets into the bidding, there’s a good chance they’ll have more to offer than the Lakers.
But there are really only two ways to rationalize the moves the Lakers made on Thursday. They might have added youth for youth’s sake. Considering how old James and Westbrook are, getting younger around them, and perhaps more pertinently, after they’re gone, isn’t the worst idea. But if they were adding youth hoping to support the current veteran talent, they did a fairly bizarre job of doing so from a fit perspective. The players they’ve brought on only make sense if more moves are coming, and Irving is the only possible addition big enough to slide the rest of these misfit role players into place.
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Pacers’ Lance Stephenson steals show with historic first-quarter explosion in Kyrie Irving’s season debut
The most recent COVID surge has decimated NBA rosters and taken the steam out of some of the league’s marquee matchups over the last couple of months, but it’s also led so some incredible feel-good stories due to the extra opportunity given to players who might not normally see the court. The latest example came from Lance Stephenson, who signed a 10-day contract with the Indiana Pacers on New Year’s Day and, on Wednesday, suited up for his first home game in Indianapolis since 2018.
In Kyrie Irving’s first game of the season for the Brooklyn Nets, Stephenson absolutely stole the show in the first quarter, coming off the bench to score 20 points in just over six minutes on 8-for-9 shooting, including 4-of-5 from 3-point range.
Stephenson became the first player in NBA history to score 20 points off the bench in the first quarter, according to Pacers reporter Pat Boylan, who noted that the quarter-by-quarter stats are only searchable to the 1996-97 season. They were also the most first-quarter points by a Pacer in franchise history.
Stephenson kept the Gainbridge Fieldhouse crowd entertained with his signature air guitar 3-point celebration, and unleashed a jubilant shoulder shimmy after beating the first-quarter buzzer with yet another 3-point bomb. He might have also taken a little extra pleasure in putting on the performance with many of his fellow native Brooklynites watching from home.
“I’ve been just working out two years, just waiting for this moment,” Stephenson said during a halftime interview on Wednesday. “I’m so happy to be here at home.”
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Stephenson, who played six games with the Atlanta Hawks earlier this season after two full seasons away from the NBA, is currently in his third stint with the Pacers, the team that drafted him with the 40th overall pick in 2010. He averaged a career-high 13.8 points, 7.2 rebounds and 4.6 assists with Indiana during the 2013-14 season, while later having stints with the Hornets, Clippers, Grizzlies, Pelicans, Timberwolves and Lakers.
Stephenson’s 10-day contract is set to expire soon, and if he keeps playing like this, it’s going to be very hard for the Pacers to cut him loose.
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Kyrie Irving’s return is sacrificing safety, sanity
Make it make sense.
The NBA is going through a wave of COVID-19 diagnoses, even among the vaccinated and perhaps the boosted, and the Brooklyn Nets decide to kowtow to Kyrie Irving?
On some level, maybe it does. Players of all levels are testing positive, so what’s the harm in bringing in a healthy body for road games, to help out the overworked Kevin Durant even in a pinch?
The harm, aside from common sense, science and everything believed to be true about teams with championship aspirations, consistent standards and chemistry concerns, seems to open a sliding door that may never be closed again, as Irving will be allowed to play in road games — except for Toronto.
The Nets appeared to take a firm stance with Irving at the start of the season, after he declared he wouldn’t be vaccinated — thus, making him ineligible for the Nets’ home games due to New York City ordinances — perhaps feeling they had enough with Durant, James Harden and a band of role players.
But the recent events pushed their hands to leave the door open to Irving returning and in fact, seemingly propping it wide open for him to sneak into the back door as players who test positive scamper back home to recover.
It’s not Irving’s or the Nets’ fault the nation is going through a scary surge, and New York is likely ground zero for so much of anything given the population. It’s almost predictable, and vaccinated players shouldn’t be shamed by the revelation of catching this invisible and deadly virus.
The Irving optics aren’t optimal, regardless of responsibility.
Irving must undergo rigorous testing in the meantime before he’s allowed to play, but he will be permitted to practice with the teammates whose names he either knows or remembers from their limited time together.
Given the way the Nets have taken a “player-first” approach, it was likely run through Durant, who wasn’t going to say no to partnering back up with his buddy. The Nets didn’t create the city mandate, and would’ve accommodated Irving by any means necessary just to have him on the floor, however the rules allow.
Irving isn’t the only unvaccinated player on a roster. He just happens to be notable, loud and confusing while being otherworldly talented, spellbinding and flat-out enjoyable to watch — and in the New York market.
With the ramped-up protocols for the holiday season, it doesn’t appear Irving will be treated much differently than other players on the Nets. From the daily testing to the restricted rules that will seemingly come into play, he’ll feel like one of the guys.
He’ll get his way, in a way. He vowed to be a “voice for the voiceless,” but maybe his Zoom screen was muted. It appeared very unlikely he would get the vaccine from the moment it was revealed he was unvaccinated, and he’s not the type to worry about wearing a scarlet letter on his forehead.
He’s so used to drama he can sit in the muck with you and stall you out until you give up your chain.
And so, the Nets folded, it seems.
Durant has been taxed, with someone named David Duke Jr. (yes, you read that correctly) playing starters’ minutes and Kessler Edwards, Cam Thomas and Day’Ron Sharpe getting more burn than anyone could’ve imagined while Harden has struggled mightily or declined heavily.
And If Durant wanted this, initiated this, it was going to happen — even if it’s bound for disaster. He’s been playing MVP ball and could be saying to Sean Marks and Steve Nash, “Hey guys, I’d like to play like this in June, not December.”
The Nets are still 2 1/2 games above the champion Milwaukee Bucks for top seed in the East, as the Bucks are also dealing with COVID concerns with Giannis Antetokounmpo testing positive a couple days ago.
But the Bucks will be feared once Voltron forms. On the Nets’ roster, only Durant is feared, and he’s great enough it could almost be enough to get through the conference and to the Finals — but teams will line up for their best shot if given the chance.
Irving, vaccinated or not, alleviates that pressure. That is, when he’s healthy. Or not taking a break to clear his head. For a variety of reasons, he hasn’t been reliable over the last year and a half, and his teammates, coaches and front office have been left to assess the damage and speak for him, to defend him even when they aren’t sure of the answers.
The NBA’s answer has been clear: The show must go on. Christmas is calling, and the television networks have laid out too much money to team owners and players for them to be absent in the wake of the recent outbreak.
There’s no second-half schedule waiting for the league to make up dozens of postponed games, and provisions will be made for teams to sign emergency players in the face of shortened rosters.
None will be as talented as Irving, though.
Is there some master plan at play here for the Nets? Do they believe once Irving gets a taste of that basketball nectar he won’t be able to return to a life of inactivity, of sitting in the shadows in the land of the forgotten with Ben Simmons and Zion Williamson?
Is there some belief Irving won’t resist the competition, the camaraderie and the “told-you-so” platform he so craves that he’ll come back to the fold to join Durant and what’s left of Harden to play permanently for a championship that seems to be for the taking?
But if this remains a double-dutch dance as players return and get reacquainted, how will that affect Irving?
Will the Nets allow an unvaccinated player, however talented he may be, to stay around and be a part-time participant for the rest of the season and into the playoffs? It seems they are merely trying to get through the next few weeks, keeping Durant sane and in one piece while things level out.
Irving will likely believe he’s won the stare-down contest with powerful men, even if it’s Durant holding the true power here. But he’ll take his wins however they come, and the Nets will deal with tomorrow, tomorrow.
Winning at all costs can sometimes be applauded, but the view from here is hard to ascertain. The Nets are sacrificing principle for any greater good — they’re sacrificing sanity.
Brooklyn Nets still unclear on Kyrie Irving’s vaccine intentions; preparing for possibility that he will miss home games, practices
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Adrian Wojnarowski
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Brian Windhorst
Close
- ESPN.com NBA writer since 2010
- Covered Cleveland Cavs for seven years
- Author of two books
The Brooklyn Nets remain unclear on All-Star guard Kyrie Irving’s ultimate intentions to get vaccinated and have made no decision on whether the organization will accommodate him as a part-time player this season, sources told ESPN.
There had been previous optimism that Irving would get vaccinated and fulfill local governmental mandates allowing him to practice and play in New York this season, but that hope is waning and Irving’s continued resistance to vaccination has the Nets preparing for the possibility that they’ll be without him for home practices and games for the foreseeable future, sources told ESPN.
If Irving remains unvaccinated, the Nets could be faced soon with a decision on whether they’ll allow Irving to come and go with the team in and out of New York — or just keep him sidelined all together, sources said.
The Nets have been outwardly supportive of Irving’s process to consider vaccination and believe they’ve listened, supported, and educated him, but the franchise’s collective patience will be increasingly tested the longer that Irving stops short of committing to join the team on a full-time basis.
The Nets believe they’re still a championship contender with a roster constructed around Kevin Durant and James Harden and could ultimately have to make hard decisions on Irving’s future should he remain unvaccinated and unable to play in the Barclays Center or Madison Square Garden.
Under an agreement between the league and player’s union, Irving could lose game checks of approximately $380,000 for every home game he misses due to the protocols starting with Friday’s preseason home game against the Milwaukee Bucks. Irving, 29, is under contract for $35.3 million this season.
After Irving missed practice on Tuesday in Brooklyn, Nets coach Steve Nash said the team will not consider relocating practices outside New York to accommodate him. The team will only be away from home for one day the rest of the preseason — Monday for a game at Philadelphia. At that point, Irving will not have been allowed to practice or play with the team for 10 days.
The challenge of an unvaccinated Irving could test the Nets immediately in the regular season. With a six-game homestead starting the second week of the season, Irving would be away from his teammates for 11 days before he could workout with them again. That’s a situation that will repeat itself over and over for varying lengths. During one stretch in November and December, the Nets are home for 20 out of 26 days.