On the court, Nets star Kyrie Irving is no longer relevant. With his team knocked out of title contention, he has no choice but to sit back and watch the playoffs continue from home.
Off the court, though, the guy is still stirring up loads of trouble.
Most recently, he made headlines for attacking the media when he called them “puppet masters” in an intense Twitter thread.
When I see my name or my brothers/sisters names getting spun through the media, I refer to all my research about who they are. Their job is to CONTROL PUBLIC PERCEPTION, all while profiting off discussing, discrediting, and disrespecting people’s lives for entertainment.
I send shots at the puppet masters, not the puppets. All puppets do is run around society, trying to gain popularity and state opinions. What a life! My name is worth billions to these media corporations. My brothers and sisters who deal with this know exactly what I mean.
Usually, whenever Irving goes off like that, there are people ready to post their responses. That held true for this instance as well.
On ESPN’s First Take on Friday, Stephen A. Smith delivered this scathing statement:
“We are witnessing one of the most delusional athletes in American history. He’s lost because he’s so big on telling everybody else they’re lost. You can try to paint this issue, Kyrie, into anything that you want. What it comes down to, and what everybody’s focusing on: you don’t wanna show up to work. You wanna do what you want to do, when you want to do it, how you want to do it, while you got your hand our for somebody else’s money. And then when you get called on it, we’re the ones who are puppets. Kyrie actually looks down on us because we want to see him play. And we’re demanding that you play. Right now, the season is over. He got six months off.”
“So here you are, you don’t wanna work unless you wanna do it when you wanna do it. You come back from the whole mandate. And even though you had spectacular games, you had other games where you were struggling and literally he went on the record and and was talking about he ain’t got his legs. Well what the hell were you doing with all of that time off? It’s beyond the pale to ask that question? And then you go out on a Twitter rant and you start spewing this stuff — why? Because the media that gets paid to cover the sport is asking you about the sport you voluntarily signed up to play!”
We are witnessing one of the most delusional athletes in American history. @KyrieIrving pic.twitter.com/WWgSouy0zg
— Stephen A Smith (@stephenasmith) April 29, 2022
Irving is an interesting character. Over the past few years, he has gone viral for some of his statements, which include remarks about the earth being flat, the Illuminati, and throwing his own teammates under the bus.
And now, he’s waging a war against the media again, calling them “puppet masters” who can’t help but control and bend the narrative.
As controversial as Irving’s words are, they might be forgivable if he was having success on the court. But with the Nets out early for the third straight year, one has to start questioning if Kyrie’s behavior is more of a detriment to his team than anything else.
