Not too long ago, Kyrie Irving was one of the most disliked players in the league. Because of his stance on the COVID-19 vaccine and making anti-Semitic posts, he was in deep trouble only a couple of years ago. However, a brilliant postseason run with the Mavericks has done a complete makeover of his reputation. Recently, Charles spoke on the maturity that has slowly settled in him, but the underlying criticism in his comment has put him in the crosshairs with Jason Whitlock.
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On a recent episode of Inside the NBA, Barkley said, “I think he has grown up. I think he has matured. Stephen A. and other people criticized him, and he rightly deserved it. You can’t go out there and be antisemitic. You can do the vaccination thing, that’s your own thing. But he deserved the criticism he got, he deserved the suspension he got.” Even though Barkley was acknowledging the growth in Kyrie, Whitlock saw it as hypocrisy.
He said that people like Barkley and Stephen A. were too comfortable criticizing Kyrie and even now they’re mentioning those events. As per Whitlock, Kyrie is a very authentic person who stood his ground with what he believed in despite being ridiculed by the media. He said, “We need to be talking about you [Barkley]. Why did you criticize him in the first place?”
SAS and Barkley talked about Kyrie and some of his questionable choices because they thought that he was being inconsiderate of other people. Even though Kyrie might have moved on from it, Whitlock still holds a grudge against Stephen A. because he treated a grown man, who is free to make choices like an imbecile.
Jason Whitlock wants to expose Stephen A. Smith
Whitlock has chosen war against two of the most outspoken individuals in the media. Both Stephen A. and Charles Barkley are known to not mince words when they speak, and they’ve also been made to eat their words in the past. So, this territory won’t be unfamiliar to either of them. Regardless, Whitlock isn’t fond of the way Stephen A. is conveniently trying to apologize to Kyrie now that he is in the NBA Finals.
Whitlock has been defending Kyrie in the media for a while now. He believes that it’s important to protect a free-spirited person like him because of the scarcity of his kind. In 2021, Whitlock even compared Kyrie to the great Muhammad Ali by saying, “Irving’s noncompliance could be the most courageous form of athletic civil disobedience since Muhammed Ali refused induction into the United States military.”
Being compared to the great Ali is the biggest compliment one can get. However, we don’t know yet if Whitlock has been doing it out of love for Kyrie or if there’s an agenda behind it.
