Boston Celtics fans have many reasons to be happy that Kyrie Irving moved on from the team after dribbling the Cs out of the postseason in a gentleman’s sweep in the second round of the 2019 Eastern Conference playoffs.
Irving’s COVID-19 vaccine stance caused him to miss more than half of the Brooklyn Nets’ home games in 2021-22, and this past summer, he requested a trade from the franchise he convinced Kevin Durant to join him with three years earlier.
Most recently, though, Irving made his greatest career gaffe yet when he promoted Hebrews to Negroes, a movie and book stuffed with anti-Semitic tropes from factions of the Black Hebrew Israelites. In the aftermath, he has been seen getting into it with reporters pressing him on why he shared it in the first place.
On November 3, Irving was once again asked, and he had a response similar to Kanye West’s when he was pressed about his own anti-Semitic tweets. “I cannot be anti-Semitic if I know where I come from,” Irving said unapologetically.
Boston Celtics analysts ripped Kyrie Irving for his lack of an apology
Kyrie Irving added during his ‘apology’ that ‘some points made in (Hebrews to Negroes) that were unfortunate,’ but the damage was already done. Several Boston Celtics analysts, among the rest of the Association’s various beat writers that did the same, took to Twitter to call out Irving for his insincerity and lack of remorse:
Dude if this is your takeaway from what’s happened… https://t.co/TziCp32f80
— Adam Kaufman (@AdamMKaufman) November 3, 2022
Maybe just go with "I'm sorry" https://t.co/8CrmNwRtHJ
— Dan Greenberg (@StoolGreenie) November 3, 2022
It’s hard to believe Kyrie Irving is taking responsibility for how his post harmed the Jewish community when literally every other sentence in this statement seems structured to avoid addressing them or antisemitism directly. Wish that weren’t the case, but it’s unavoidable. https://t.co/qaEJsIMMzB
— Jared Weiss (@JaredWeissNBA) November 3, 2022
It’s going to be difficult for Irving to recover from this. While he isn’t being blackballed from the league like Meyers Leonard was when he dropped an anti-Semitic slur in March 2021, he has likely seen his last max contract.
Boston Celtics fans must continually thank their lucky stars Irving moved on from the team considering how much damage he has done to the Brooklyn Nets organization in the last two years in particular.