Even though he wasn’t able to take part in the Disney bubble, Kyrie Irving was making headlines ahead of the NBA’s restart.
Brooklyn’s point guard spoke about players not taking part in the restart so basketball wouldn’t take away from the social justice movement going on in the country. He was subsequently labeled as “the disruptor” in a piece by ESPN’s Adrian Wojnarowski and then criticized heavily by ex-teammate turned ESPN NBA analyst Kendrick Perkins, once again.
Irving has been out of the spotlight since that time, until he made his appearance on “The ETCs with Kevin Durant.” In the second episode of the show, Irving finally responded to all of the criticism:
Well, I think I heard something, it was Maya Angelou, she said, ‘One person standing on the word of God is [a] majority.’ And I’m always going to speak on what’s right. And I think that it comes at a price, where all of those things that they dress me up as fall off at the wayside of who I truly am. And I don’t think it’s fair for me to bring that type of energy home and consider it, meaning people talking about me or people addressing me as, ‘Hey, what is he doing? Is he’s not smarter?’ There was something that Kendrick said. He was like, if you put his brain in a bird, it’s going to fly backwards.
And we have people like that that I don’t have a problem with at all, that’s his opinion, nor do I feel disrespected by anything like that. But what I would say to that is, I’ve come to a place in my life where I serve myself and I serve others, but also I take the criticism serious from people I respect, and people that are on the alignment and wavelength and frequency as I am. I can’t take in everybody’s burdens and problems and thoughts about me and what I should be doing, what I should not be doing, because I have taken that into consideration.
Irving continued:
And it also became a very dark place that I was in. And when people speak about these dark places, we fail to accept that you have to go to therapy, and you have to go get help, because you almost become a prisoner of your own fame, your own life, your own presence, your own stature. And I always wanted to be the strongest in the room, the person that holds everything together, knows I got everything right, like my [expletive] don’t stink. But I’ve also learned from a lot of great individuals that sometimes it’s great to lead from the back. And I don’t need to feel vindicated for saying what’s right, what’s already been known.
Historically, if we break down factual information, we’re not talking about opinionated facts, we’re talking about factual information of things that have happened in our world, in society, to race, to religion, to our belief system, to media, to propagandizing racial tension and social injustice. And there’s so many issues that you want to tackle, that I want to tackle, and honestly, it’s so hard to do it without having a destination.
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