Over the years, Kyrie Irving has said countless things that are far too absurd for a superstar of a top sport in the world. The Australia-born point guard is one of the most sensational point guards to ever set foot on the basketball court and yet, the biggest thing people search about him is, “What did Kyrie Irving say now?”
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That will not give you the slightest idea if you don’t know about the tip of the iceberg which Kyrie is. The 6ft 2” guard who had recently jumped to the fourth franchise in six years with his move to the Dallas Mavericks just loves to be in the spotlight.
If not through his spectacular dribbling and similarly good scoring, the man always finds a way to be on the news that has nothing to do with basketball. Let’s get to all his controversial statements over the years.
The controversies by Dallas Mavericks point guard Kyrie Irving
The world started looking at Uncle Drew a lot differently when he sunk that 3-pointer on Stephen Curry and the Warriors in the most crucial moment of Game 7 in the 2016 NBA Finals.
He had transcended to superstar status and wasn’t just second fiddle to LeBron James. However, he might have wanted more attention when he was already getting the most he had ever gotten.
That must have given him the idea to come up with his first big controversy.
2017 — When Irving said the earth is flat
“It’s right in front of our faces,” Irving said on the Road Trippin podcast of his then-teammates, Richard Jefferson and Channing Frye. “I’m telling you, it’s right in front of our faces. They lie to us. … There’s no concrete information except for the information that they’re giving us. They’re particularly putting you in a direction of what to believe and what not to believe. The truth is right there.”
After going as far as to claim there’s no real picture for us, the 8x All-Star stood with it for more than a year and a half before finally apologizing for it. By then he was a Boston Celtics player. Skipping the part where planned to team up with Kevin Durant while he was still in Boston, but you can see it in the following embed.
2021 — Kyrie not only rejected the vaccine but also became a leading voice of that group
The world struggled a lot with the COVID-19 pandemic which started spreading in the US around March 2020. The NBA shut down and shifted to Orlando inside the Bubble which was within Disneyland. Not only did Kyrie decide not to participate in the Bubble he manipulated KD to not do it as well when the latter recovered earlier from his injury than expected.
The next year when most of the states came up with a vaccine mandate, including NYC, Irving’s beliefs didn’t allow him to take it. The man didn’t play almost an entire season due to it and lost around $17 million for it. He thought of himself as the voice of the community that stood against vaccination.
2022 — Anti-Semitism
Racism is the last thing you would think of him to be involved in, being as woke as he was with his ideologies. However, he shared the link to a controversial movie that was in criticism for its anti-Semitic views late last year. That saw him again catch all the unnecessary attention once again.
Now
After all his controversies off the court, what else did Kyrie Irving do which made him the anti-hero of the NBA once again?
The man requested a trade out of nowhere, a few days before the February transfer deadline, much like James Harden did it last year after getting sick of his antics, and got himself to Dallas.
Yes, the motherland of Alex Jones, one of whose conspiracy theories Kyrie shared on his social for some horrendous reason. We didn’t do a separate subheading for it in all his controversies because we would rather not give Jones any more views than he already gets.
He did distance himself away from Jones later on, saying he only shared his post from the 90s and had nothing to do with the later theories and views. But a day after joining the Mavericks, guess what the new man in Dallas said in his first press conference? He wants to focus on just basketball, which the media doesn’t want him to.
Hilarious, isn’t it?
Well, he also took his apology back for what we all “believed” was anti-Semitic, but the man himself meant nothing of that sort because he did not agree with everything said in the movie that he shared the link for and also has Jewish relatives.
This man has more controversies than LeBron James has had titles plus controversies (4 or 5) in his 20-year NBA career. Hence, ‘what did Kyrie Irving say now’ is never going to get out of this generation of NBA community’s sight or mind.
