Brooklyn Nets guard Kyrie Irving hasn’t played since Jan. 5, and his absence for “personal reasons” is expected to continue for several more games as the NBA looks into a recently surfaced video of Irving at a maskless birthday party.
On Tuesday night, Irving participated in a Zoom event with Cynthia Nixon to discuss justice reform — an event that occurred around tipoff of Brooklyn’s win against the Nuggets.
This latest Kyrie saga had many questioning Irving’s commitment — at least with Brooklyn — but if it was up to ESPN’s Stephen A. Smith (which, thankfully, it is not), he’d have Irving call it quits on his NBA career entirely.
Stephen A Smith "Kyrie Irving should retire" pic.twitter.com/Xrq3xVazp7
— gifdsports (@gifdsports) January 13, 2021
In Wednesday’s edition of First Take, Smith said that the 28-year-old Irving should retire from the NBA.
Smith said:
“No, he’s not. He’s not worth it at all. As a matter of fact, let me say this straight up and down, I think Kyrie Irving should retire. I think he should announce his retirement today. Clearly you don’t want to play basketball bad enough. Now, you may still want to get the $33.4 million … Kyrie Irving has not prioritized basketball. I’m not saying he doesn’t want to play all together. I’m saying he hasn’t prioritized it. How fair is that to the Brooklyn Nets? How fair is that to Sean Marks? How fair is that to Steve Nash? A coached that he endorsed bringing onboard. A coach that he wanted. A coach that he fully supported. How fair is that to his brother, Kevin Durant?”
Obviously, there’s almost no chance that Irving would just retire for good. The financial implications alone would probably keep him in the league even if his heart wasn’t in it.
But the Nets are finding themselves in an increasingly difficult spot the longer this drama drags out.
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