This is the online version of our daily newsletter, The Morning Win. Subscribe to get irreverent and incisive sports stories, delivered to your mailbox every morning. Chris Korman is filling in for Andy Nesbitt.
Kyrie Irving is a complicated person who does many weird things for the sake of appearing different or edgy or enlightened in a way the rest of us simply couldn’t understand.
Opting not to get a COVID vaccine is stupid and damaging. The flat earth thing was a privileged person pretending he gets to believe whatever he wants. The times he’s gotten away with being an awful teammate prove only that skill excuses character issues.
There are many reasons to dislike Kyrie Irving, and it is endlessly fascinating that a person bathed in constant attention can go so far out of his way to seek more (he and Aaron Rodgers should form a club.)
But there are precisely zero valid reasons to yell obscenities at Kyrie Irving as he attempts to do his job. There’s also no reason to expect him to not respond in kind, as he did Sunday evening in Boston, causing the usual commotion about athlete decorum.
During a game the Brooklyn Nets would eventually lose 115-114 on a poorly defended Jayson Tatum buzzer-beater, Irving was caught flipping off Boston fans. He also had a spirited exchange with fans on the way to the locker room.
Irving was forthright after the game in discussing the issue, saying:
“[If] somebody’s going to call me out of my name, I’m going to look at them straight in the eye and see if they’re really ’bout it,” he concluded. “Most of the time they’re not.”
Fair. Irving said that he was going to “embrace” his dark side.
But on NBA on TNT, Shaquille O’Neal and Charles Barkley lamented Kyrie’s outburst. Shaq said he needed to “man up.” Barkley said: “Please stop it, you athletes today, whining like little …”
The take here is, predictably, that all players have had to deal with this before and so Kyrie should simply weather it, as well.
Except that: 1) Irving has said in the past that he’s worried about “racism” from the Boston crowd, and nobody should stand by if that’s going on and 2) Shaq and Barkley didn’t play in an era when cellphone cameras were ubiquitous. Who knows what Mr. “I am not a role model” might have been caught saying in his younger days. Chuck doesn’t seem like one to take insults lightly.
What, then, do we make of this? Thousands of people spend hundreds of dollars (at least) to watch basketball in person, and some portion of them take this opportunity to yell angry things at an opposing player, and then we have this elaborate debate about whether said player should respond and …. wow, life is meaningless. What are we even doing here?
The fact is, Kyrie Irving acted like a human and added drama to a series that already has plenty. He put on a show. That’s why we watch!
The NBA isn’t about to get into policing individual fans unless they’re caught doing something egregious, so as long as players are willing to pay the resulting fines, interaction is going to be a feature, not a bug.
Why do fans yell, though? What’s the psychology there?
I’m sure Celtics fans may feel they are accomplishing something by distracting Irving with insults. They think they’re IN HIS HEAD now. He’s shook. Rent free, bro!
This all is about as believable as the idea that if you sail far enough, you’ll just plummet into space.
Kyrie Irving has been dealing with trash talk, I’m sure, for as long as he been able to dribble a basketball. You’re not going to derail him. And it’s not like exerting all that extra energy to flash the nifty hidden-behind-the-head double bird left him exhausted: Irving scored 39 points, had six assists and four steals.
No, the yelling is about something else, ultimately. You’ll each need a therapist to work that part out though.
Quick Hits: Jordan Spieth follows through… Jeff Fisher is back doing football(ish) things… No, for real, the USFL is back again for some reason … And more!
— Jordan Spieth signed autographs after winning a playoff. What a good guy.
— Jeff Fisher coached football with his hat on backwards and everybody thought it was funny. Did the back of the hat say 8-8? Almost certainly.
— The USFL is your “oh look somebody is trying the spring football thing again” league of the moment, and the play is … well, it’s like all the spring football that came before it. Sloppy.
— Have you watched the latest Special Delivery? If not, do. Mike Sykes reviews the Yeezy 450.
