NBA commissioner Adam Silver spoke publicly following his meeting with Nets guard Kyrie Irving and shared that he personally feels that Irving is not antisemitic. According to ESPN’s Stephen A. Smith, that should mark the end of Irving’s exile in Brooklyn.
Smith, who accused the Nets of trying to “emasculate” Irving with a series of return-to-play requirements that include sensitivity training following Irving’s decision to promote antisemitic material, gave his strongest defense of Irving yet on Friday’s episode of First Take.
Smith argued that Irving has already done enough to remedy the situation, and said that the Jewish community should show compassion toward Irving.
“We got riots that took place in the streets a couple of years ago, and I told everybody back then. I said when George Floyd had that knee on his neck, what people didn’t get outside of the Black community is that Black folks we going off because we were saying from a figurative perspective, from a metaphorical perspective, we always feel like we got a knee on our neck. And that’s where the frustration and the foment of vitriol and hostility, and dare I say violence came shining through.
And so here we are again. Now this doesn’t have anything to do with that in a literal perspective, but this is somebody, or a bunch of people out there trying to put their knee and keep their knee on Kyrie’s neck.
Kyrie does not deserve that. He made a mistake. He made a mistake, he had to apologize for it, he’s been embarrassed because of it, he’s cost himself money because of it, he’s been suspended because of it. But if Adam Silver, the commissioner of the NBA – who is a Jewish man – comes out publicly and acknowledges he made a mistake, he was wrong, and that he thinks the suspension and the conversations have gone a long way toward pushing this forward, the Jewish community should be able to accept that.”
Shortly after the segment, Joe Tsai tweeted that he personally met with Irving, and that the team and NBPA are working “toward a process of forgiveness, healing and education.”
The Nets and Kyrie, together with the NBA and NBPA, are working constructively toward a process of forgiveness, healing and education.
— Joe Tsai (@joetsai1999) November 11, 2022
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