Brooklyn Nets: Kevin Durant calls out ex-Celtic for Kyrie Irving comment
By Mike Luciano
In a series that saw Kyrie Irving play in front of Boston Celtics fans for the first time as a member of the Brooklyn Nets and a fan throw a water bottle at him after a Game 4 victory, the main talking point from this series has been, of all things, Irving stepping on the Celtics logo.
Kyrie’s haters and former Celtics alike, two groups that aren’t always mutually exclusive, found their latest anti-Kyrie slant to latch onto, as they came out in full force to bash the point guard for disrespecting all former Celtics players with his shoe rub, which is simply not the case.
Hall of Famer Kevin Garnett, who confirmed that Boston’s leprechaun logo is indeed called “Lucky” for some reason, claimed that Irving simply “can’t do that.”
2008 champion Glen “Big Baby” Davis, was a bit more aggressive in his critique of Irving, though the Nets star had teammate Kevin Durant come to his defense.
Davis hinted that Kyrie’s actions might end up with him actually getting hurt in real life in a truly epic instance of tough-guy bloviating.
Durant, who is quick to hear any criticism directed at him or his teammates, leaped to Irving’s defense, laughing off Davis’ take as simply ridiculous and not grounded in reality.
KG & Big Baby on Kyrie "stomping LUCKY"
— Ballislife.com (@Ballislife) May 31, 2021
And KD's response to Big Baby pic.twitter.com/4o3rDSqGcJ
Former Celtics are heated about Brooklyn Nets star Kyrie Irving’s actions.
One of the few former Celtics to actually support Irving in this endeavor was KG’s frontcourt mate in 2008, as ESPN analyst Kendrick Perkins voiced his frustration with the fact that logo talk has overtaken both the water bottle incident and Brooklyn’s 3-1 series lead as the main talking points.
Kyrie knew that he was going to be targeted with nonstop verbal harassment from fans who are still ticked off he left Boston after two seasons, and despite his warnings about trying to keep the jeers basketball-related, he has since had a bottle thrown at him from the stands and been depicted as a cold-hearted demon for…stepping on a cartoon leprechaun.
There has been no mention of the fact that Irving almost put up 40 in a performance that helped the Nets score 141 points to take Game 4 of this series. With Kyrie’s game so effective right now, he can’t be critiqued on that at the moment, meaning that minor incidents like this end up getting blown way out of proportion.
In addition to off-court nonsense overshadowing his basketball accomplishments, the fact that fans continue to lose their minds and hurl objects like water bottles at players has again been pushed to the back burner, as players and fans are trying to equate stepping on a leprechaun with disrespecting Bill Russell. These haters are about to dislocate a shoulder reaching like that.
This is the problem with the Kyrie hate from Boston fans and larger media voices. He is one of the best offensive players in the game today and a key contributor on a championship contender, yet the top story from his postseason performance on a night where he almost scored 40 is how angry grown men are getting over a besmirched sticker of a leprechaun.
The sanctimonious way that ex-Celtics view their logo is simply ridiculous, and while Irving had to have known he would be inflaming tensions by doing what he did, the fact that so many people connected to the game who really should know better have gotten on their soapbox about this seems really odd.
