Kyrie Irving and the Nets Are the NBA’s Great Embarrassment

First, an excerpt from my own writing about Kyrie Irving, published here last December:

“Those foolish enough to form a unified theory of Kyrie Irving have spent a decade getting outfoxed by a mercurial weirdo, but I, writer Corbin Smith, believe that I have cracked the code. Kyrie Irving is, first and foremost, a pain in the ass. It is the only constant thread throughout his career.”

Well, ladies and gentlemen, I am here to announce that he got me. I’ve been outfoxed. Because less than a year after I said Kyrie was a mostly harmless flat-earther weirdo who embarked on myriad galaxy-brain misadventures, he logged onto Instagram Reels and shared a lengthy clip of vintage Alex Jones, the wacko conspiracy theorist, denouncing the “New World Order” on his Austin-based cable access show.

It’s an indefensible share from Kyrie, of course. Alex Jones is a nasty grifter who represents the worst American capitalism’s shitty marketplace of ideas has to offer. But hey, it’s possible that you can believe in the “New World Order” without thinking it is a Jewish cabal, right? Well, then this happened:

A month and a handful of Brooklyn Nets losses later, Kyrie suggested that he may harbor some deeply troubling thoughts and feelings about the Jews when he posted an Amazon listing for Hebrews to Negroes: Wake Up Black America, an antisemitic documentary that quotes Adolf Hitler and The Protocols of the Elders of Zion, alleges that many of the words prominent Jews are in league with Satan, and claims Jews dominated the transatlantic slave trade—a propagandistic, antisemitic lie also peddled by leading antisemites David Duke and Louis Farrakhan. (Why did Amazon sell this movie in the first place?)

Kyrie has responded to criticism of him peddling the rough equivalent of a Nazi propaganda film by acting unhinged, a PR tactic that is really hot at the moment. First, he defended sharing the hate film by saying he’s “an OMNIST” who’s been unfairly branded antisemitic. In a follow-up tweet, he ominously wrote, “The Light is beginning to Dawn.”

But it all came to a head on Saturday, when Kyrie gave the most headache-inducing postgame media presser imaginable after the Nets got beat by the actively tanking Indiana Pacers.

“The claims of antisemitism, who are the original chosen people of God, and we go into these conversations and it’s a big no-no. I don’t live my life like that,” he said. “I grew up in a melting pot, when I say a melting pot of all races, white, Black, yellow, Jewish, Christian, Muslim. You see it here in my life now. I’m not here to be divisive. So they can push—I don’t wanna say they, cause I’m not identifying any one group or race of people. I’m in a unique position to have an influence on my community and what I post does not mean that I support everything that’s being said or everything that’s being done or I’m campaigning for anything. All I do is post things for my people and my community and those it’s actually going to impact. Anyone else who has criticism, it obviously wasn’t meant for them.”

Kyrie sets the mic down, appearing convinced that his word salad was understood and respected by all, and he would soon be receiving high-fives and handshakes for setting the record straight on that time he shared an Amazon listing for an incredibly vile antisemitic documentary. Nick Friedell, the Nets beat reporter at ESPN, begins to ask a follow-up question. “Hopefully I’m understanding what you said, and I want to…”

He’s then interrupted by Kyrie. “I don’t expect understanding from a…media conglomerate, a group that sincerely talks about the game of basketball and then it brings up religion as if it’s correlative, at times, when it’s convenient for people to bring it up. So just… be direct with your question, so we can move on from this and I can talk about the game and go home to my son, Elohim, and my wife Marlene, OK?”

Friedell, who isn’t allowed to say, “What the hell are you talking about, dude?”, opts to first ask Kyrie if he actually watched the documentary or read the book it was based on. He said that he “had a lot of time last year”—when he was de facto suspended for opting out of vaccination—“to read a lot, read a whole bunch, good and bad, about the truth of our world.” Friedell asks if he understands why someone might think the movie in question was antisemitic.

The Brooklyn Nets Are Betting Big on the NBA’s Three Biggest Weirdos

Kyrie picks up the mic again.

He claims that he’s “no different from the next human being” and that the media is making up “this powerful influence I have,” before acknowledging that he is in fact influential and has “a whole Army around me.” He says there was no uproar over the N-word “going up on Twitter,” even though there was. He alleges he didn’t “do anything illegal” and didn’t “harm anybody.” When asked about the Alex Jones video, he says he doesn’t agree with Jones’ Sandy Hook shooting conspiracy theories, but then matter-of-factly states that the video he shared of Jones is “true.” He concludes by proclaiming, “I can post whatever I want,” before lambasting the media for trying to create drama for merely asking him about why he chose to share an antisemitic film to his millions of followers.

And just like that, the exchange is over, with Irving having left more questions than answers. Meanwhile, no one has decided to penalize Irving for any of this—at least not yet. No fines, no suspensions. Joe Tsai, the owner of the Nets, fired off a tepid response before Irving’s presser meltdown:

He hasn’t said anything since. The NBA shared a missive that does not mention Irving by name:

They have not opted to do anything else. Hell, even the players’ union is upset:

But Kyrie is still a VP on the National Basketball Players Association’s governing board (for now at least). A whole league ecosystem, powerless to do anything but wag their fingers.

In the background of all this, the Brooklyn Nets are an embarrassing 2-6 on the season, ranking 16th in offense and dead last in defense, while sporting a roster with two uninjured Hall of Famers and Ben Simmons, who was, at one time, really rather good. Like most crap teams, they seek someone to blame, and their amiable Canadian coach, Hall of Fame point guard Steve Nash, was as good a person as any. The Nets stunk last year and Kevin Durant was semi-openly campaigning for Nash’s firing this offseason, so there you have it. On Monday, they fired him and Nash was freed from Kyrie Irving and the stench of Brooklyn Nets’ disappointment for the rest of his life. Good for him, I say.

The Ime Udoka ‘Cheating’ Scandal Has Exposed the Shallowness of Sports Media

The Nets, staring at this garbage fire in search of a fire extinguisher, have opted instead for a canister of gasoline in reportedly seeking the services of Ime Udoka, last seen getting fired by the Celtics after he used the organization’s email directory as his own personal Ashley Madison. Udoka was suspended for the year and not fired for this transgression, but the Celtics, seeing a clear way out of paying his contract when they inevitably let him go, are apparently ready to renounce their claim on his services and wash their hands of the matter altogether.

Why exactly the Nets, neck-deep in one awful controversy, have opted to let another one walk into their building is a real mystery. Udoka coached for the team during Nash’s first year at the helm, when they made the Eastern Conference Finals with a battered roster and lost to the Bucks in a tighter-than-you-might-expect series. Udoka is in there to fix the defense, I suppose, but with a depleted roster and a rotting environment, it’s hard to imagine even the best coach in the world could put this thing together and make it dance.

When the Nets moved from New Jersey to Brooklyn in 2012, there was something at work just under the surface. The New York Knicks, it was said, are a shitshow and always will be a shitshow as long as billionaire heir and aspiring blues guitarist James Dolan was stinking up the joint. All the Nets needed to do to steal away the hearts and minds of the biggest sports market in America was to “be competent.” The opportunity was theirs for the taking.

In the decade since, no one who came to the Nets, be they player, coach, GM or owner, has found what they were looking for in Brooklyn. Kevin Durant, hot off his successful tenure with the Warriors, wanted to find fortune with Irving, away from the four-headed beast in the Bay. He has, instead, found himself playing the back half of his career in a toilet. Coaches have come and gone, saddled with unrealistic expectations and bad rosters from GMs who have also come and gone. Mikhail Prokhorov, the Russian oligarch who owned the team when they arrived, sold his shares for reasons unknown, geopolitically. New owner Joe Tsai (of Alibaba fame) cashed out the squad’s young assets for three Hall of Famers: James Harden, sensing danger, left as quickly as he possibly could; Irving lost his mind; and Durant is sitting around, waiting for someone to please trade for him.

Only Bruce Ratner, the New York real estate developer who bought the New Jersey Nets (outbidding an ownership group led by Charles Kushner, father of Jared), stripped the team for parts, leveraged the prospect of pro sports in Brooklyn to enable him to build the Atlantic Yards development in a rapidly gentrifying Brooklyn, and got out from under the team while the getting was good, has avoided the stink that follows this team around. Perhaps his success came with a karmic price that will keep the Nets in the mud forever. Or they just need to trade Kyrie. One of the two.

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