Ahead of his return to Barclays Center on Tuesday, Mavericks guard Kyrie Irving pleaded with the media to stop making such a big deal of his past. In a chat with the media before the game, he opened up on his thoughts about the game and why he believes the media should quit drawing so much attention to this stuff.
“I don’t know if it’s just a fan thing or a media thing… but let’s just normalize the emotions that go into those games playing against your former team instead of making it such a big deal,” said Irving. “It’s just another basketball game against a good team. We need to do a better job of not making it more than it’s about. It’s basketball, it’s fans. Some people are gonna like it that you left, others are not. It’s all part of the overall conglomerate that we are as a league.”
Kyrie has quite a controversial history and his track record for bailing on teams has somewhat ruined his reputation in the NBA. As a Maverick, Kyrie has been on his best behavior and he has yet to create any serious distractions in the locker room. Even so, his return to Brooklyn this week is a reminder of the mistakes he’s made in the past and a reminder to everyone that he can still cause problems when the going gets tough. Sadly, Irving will carry this baggage for the rest of his career and no matter how hard he fights to defeat this narrative, nothing will erase what he did to end up with the Mavericks. And while Irving may have moved on from the Nets already, it’s unlikely that the fans will soon forget the way he destroyed a potential superteam.
Kyrie Irving Destroyed The Brooklyn Nets
Kyrie joined the Nets back in 2019 and all was well until the 2019-20 campaign when the COVID-19 pandemic forced everyone to adapt. After a long hiatus from action, the season was set to resume in the NBA bubble but Kyrie was an early scratch from the event due to a lingering shoulder injury. Irving was against the NBA resuming the season and actively spoke out against the whole response to the crisis. The following season is where things took a turn for the worse. When Irving refused to get vaccinated, he disqualified himself from all Nets home games and became a target of public outrage that drew everyone’s attention.
Even after trading for James Harden, the Nets were never able to reach their potential due to a lack of consistency and Irving would eventually ask for a trade after making enemies with owner Joe Tsai and GM Sean Marks. Kyrie was finally traded to the Mavericks last season, and Kevin Durant was traded not long after that in a deal with the Phoneix Suns. In his return to the city, Durant looked back fondly on his tenure with Irving and the fans received him with a relatively warm reception. For Irving, though, the situation is very different and things might get ugly out there when he takes the floor. Clearly, Irving is doing his best to ignore all the noise and get through the game like it was any other.
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