Wherever Kyrie Irving looks, he finds people to blame and those willing to exercise meaningful social capital to champion him.
There’s always a reason, a drawn-out story, an explanation. When he went on a two-week staycation last season, the Brooklyn Nets supported him — while having the right to be frustrated.
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James Harden being unhappy with the unstable nature of the franchise, instability in large part due to Irving? Trade him for Ben Simmons, who doesn’t appear to be close to playing at all as the playoffs inch closer by the hour.
Let’s be clear. The New York City mandate doesn’t make much sense. Kevin Durant is correct when he says that. But Irving is no victim and certainly no martyr, no matter how much it’s painted that way.
“It’s ridiculous,” Durant said Sunday afternoon. “I don’t get it. It just feels like at this point now somebody’s trying to make a statement or a point to flex their authority.
“Everybody out here’s looking for attention. That’s what I feel the mayor wants right now, is some attention. But he’ll figure it out soon, he better.”
To exacerbate the seriousness and almost laughable element of this, the NBA fined the Brooklyn Nets $50,000 for violating New York’s law and league health and safety protocols for allowing Irving to enter the locker room at Barclays Center.
Of course it’s ridiculous!
Unvaccinated performers or workers in private businesses still cannot work in New York City, despite a separate indoor vaccine mandate, Key2NYC, being repealed earlier this month.
Irving can end this nonsense and do what millions of citizens have done, what every other Brooklyn Nets employee did this season: get vaccinated.
But that would require accountability, responsibility and backtracking — attributes that weren’t built into Irving’s DNA after being blessed with otherworldly basketball skills that he’s honed, toned and perfected.
Never mind people are still dying because of this virus, even if it’s at lower rates than before. Most major news outlets provide daily death tolls, and no matter how used to it one can become, it’s still heartbreaking and sobering.
China is on lockdown as COVID-19 surges there with another variant. Who knows if it’s headed this way and the effects it could have on, you know, the most populated city in the United States.
Irving showing up to Barclays Center to watch a game he very well could’ve played in definitely displays inconsistencies. But if anyone knows inconsistency, if anyone knows the value of something not making sense, it’s Irving.
It seems he and New York are fit for each other in that way. Mayor Eric Adams doesn’t need Irving to score political points, as Durant suggested. Adams is the mayor of the biggest city in the United States, and a Black dude at that.
This ain’t Cleveland.
Exceptions are made for the exceptional, so it’s not unreasonable for Irving or by proxy, Durant, to believe the rules should be bent for Irving to slither through. He managed to evade true responsibility around every fire he’s associated with, and been enabled and excused under the guise of “he means well.”
Any iota of vulnerability combined with charisma is often what many will lean on to defend him, to excuse everything from the bizarre to the indefensible.
That shouldn’t be the bare minimum here. He doesn’t come off as a bad person, growing up before the eyes of the public is no easy task. But even young-ish superstars have to grow up.
A big fuss was made of him just being at Barclays to support his team, when in other cases, he couldn’t be bothered to show up — like a Game 7 in the Eastern Conference finals as a member of the Boston Celtics against his former team, the Cleveland Cavaliers, in 2018 due to a procedure on a deviated septum.
Now he has decided to appear at Barclays, not as a ploy to Adams but to show his teammates he’s got their backs — from the expensive seats.
Maturity, right?
It’s impossible to have it both ways. Irving always pleads for understanding and humanity like a regular human being — which we all deserve. But when it comes to this, he wants special treatment that wouldn’t apply to any other citizen and employee of New York City.
The consistent inconsistency.
He wouldn’t get the jab for his own health and safety, or the people around him. He wouldn’t do it when he saw Harden disengaging with the Nets, a team put together to win a championship this season.
It’s his own principles, we’re led to believe. But the principles of everyone else should be flexible, nobody else should have a strong leg to stand on when it comes to him.
Politically and practically, Adams can’t make an exception for Irving. The mandate was in place before he stepped into office and a decent number of New Yorkers either got vaccinated or lost their jobs due to this.
No tears for their choices, no tears for Irving.
And just in case anyone has forgotten, Toronto isn’t changing its mandate either, and Brooklyn could face the Raptors in a play-in situation. Should alterations be made for Irving across the border?
The Eastern Conference playoffs wouldn’t be made better without him, although as a basketball public, seeing Irving listed as a “DNP” in May or June isn’t exactly new hat.
Durant’s greatness deserves a co-star, not an anvil.
Instead of the world marveling at Durant scoring more beautifully and naturally than anyone in the league’s history in a 53-point destruction of the Knicks, he looks like an overworked and underpaid public defender when presenting Irving’s case. Except Durant is a millionaire basketball player, challenging the NYC mayor in his postgame news conference.
Perhaps at the peak of his powers, his physical abilities combined with experience and know-how, Durant still would have to go through a gauntlet to get to the Finals.
Giannis Antetokounmpo isn’t going anywhere, and Durant couldn’t beat the Bucks by himself last year.
Irving whined about his ankle injury, hinting Antetokounmpo purposely put his foot there for Irving to land on.
If the two match up at some point and things hold with the mandate, who will he manage to blame then?
