Brooklyn Nets: Kyrie Irving is taking a lot of heat for doing his job

A report surfaced yesterday that Brooklyn Nets guard Kyrie Irving wanted to start a new league. However, his teammates quickly denied that report.

Stefan Bondy of the New York Daily News tweeted yesterday evening that Brooklyn Nets guard Kyrie Irving proposed to his teammates in a group chat that they should skip the bubble in Orlando, and instead look to start their own league.

However, Bondy walked back his words a little bit several hours later and said that Irving’s idea is not necessarily in response to the bubble.

Notice how I said several hours later in my sentence above, and take that as you will.

Luckily, his teammates, who are ACTUALLY part of the group chat, not just a “source,” jumped in and claimed that report to be fake news.

If Irving was really that unpopular in the locker room, then there would be no way that his teammates would take to social media so soon to back the All-Star point guard up, so his teammates backing him up here publicly like this should not be taken with a grain of salt.

Irving is known for being outspoken and coming up with radical ideas, but if Irving did indeed propose that his teammates should create a new league, and that idea was independent of the bubble situation, then most people with common sense would think he’s just saying it in jest.

Irving has already been dealing with an unbelievable amount of backlash for expressing his concerns about restarting the league in a bubble not only during a pandemic, but also during a time where Black Americans are struggling to fight social injustices and racism in their own country, so this is just not the time to twist narratives and try to paint a guy who wants nothing but positive change in our society as the villain.

Kyrie Irving is also literally the Vice President of the National Basketball Players Association, so it is his JOB to voice the concerns of players whose voices may not be as loud as other superstars around the league while voicing his own concerns about how basketball coming back could serve as a distraction to the country focusing on social justice issues.

It’s okay for other players around the league to disagree with where Irving and those other players are coming from, but that is a time for all players to come together and have honest and open conversations about how the league could use this opportunity in Orlando to resume play while keeping the attention on social justice issues.

What is not okay, however, is that Kendrick Perkins irresponsibly claimed that Irving didn’t want the season to resume since he was told he couldn’t go to Disney World. Perkins has been on record saying that Irving purposely missed a three-game stretch with games in New York, Cleveland and Boston, so anything he has to say regarding Irving shouldn’t be looked at as credible at all. There seems to be some sort of deep hatred from Perkins when it comes to Irving.

Matt Barnes initially echoed much of the same statement made by Perkins, but Stephen Jackson was right there on FaceTime with Barnes to enlighten him on the fact that Irving has been calling him crying nearly every day on FaceTime, and that he understands this moment.

Jackson, a close friend of George Floyd, has emerged as a leader in the fight for social justice, so for him to come out and say that Irving understands this moment goes to show that Kyrie really wants to see changes in systemic racism in this country and the impact it has on the Black Community.

What makes Kyrie Irving so great is that he’s an authentic and passionate human being. He’s never going to stay silent when it comes to issues that are near and dear to him, and he will always do what is best for him no matter if it’s the popular decision or not.