What it means to be different: The case of Kyrie Irving
I have always been fascinated by misunderstood personalities, not just in sports, but in every aspect of daily life. I have always believed that behind every action, every behavior and even every statement (written or spoken) there is a hidden meaning for the one who accepts it and also for the one who utters it. To conclude this brief introduction to my motivations for choosing today's topic, I will content myself with referring to Kyrie Andrew Irving, not only as an athlete, but also as a captivating personality.
The first steps
Born in Australia on March 23, 1992 to American parents who moved there because Irving Sr. received an offer to play in the league there, basketball has also shaped little Kyrie, inexplicably connecting him to certain people and cities. Suffice it to say that he is the godchild of once-legendary guard Rodney Strickland, that he is a cousin of Isaiah Briscoe, and that he is connected to Boston and New Jersey, the cities he "served" on the competitive stage. Boston is the city where Dred Irving, Kyrie's father, played at Boston University during his college years, while KAI himself attended various camps in college before eventually wearing the Celtics jersey, much later in the 2017-2019 seasons. Now, as for the other city on the East Coast, we should note that "Uncle Drew" grew up in New Jersey and attended St. Patrick's High School with Michael Kidd-Gilchrist while he transferred to the Brooklyn Nets immediately after the Celtics, a relationship that ended episodically a few months ago.
It's also worth noting that before his college career in 2010, he participated in all the major sporting events like the Nike Hoop Summit, the McDonald's All-Star Game, the Jordan Brand Classic and won the gold medal at the Pan American Games with the U-18 team that same year. In short, Kyrie played for a year at Duke under Mike Krzyzewski before making himself available for the 2011 draft, where he was selected No. 1 overall by the Cleveland Cavaliers. With them he won the championship ring in 2016, was selected 8 times for the All-Star Game and received the MVP title in 2014, while he was Rookie of the Year in 2012, among other awards. As for the presence in the US men's team, he has a gold medal in the 2014 World Basketball Championship, as well as the Most Valuable Player award and a gold medal in the 2016 Rio Olympics. Finally, he was named the best male basketball player of the year in 2014, ending a year that by all accounts was the most successful of his career.
Social Kyrie
In the following lines, we'll look at what Kyrie does off the field, whether it's his collaboration with Pepsi or the dozens of donations he's made to third parties, culminating in the termination of his relationship with Nike. Of his - shall we say? - acting attempts in the role of Uncle Drew, an aging streetball legend in the comedy of the same name that aired in 2018, to voiceover appearances in (daily) series and cartoons, Irving manages to surprise us, and with this.
The idea for the movie comes from a Pepsi advertising campaign - consisting of 5 long commercials - in which we learn more secrets about the sport we love, in addition to the numerous moves and skills generously demonstrated by the protagonists/players. In addition to Irving, the movie stars Bill Russell, Kevin Love, Maya Moore, Nate Robinson, J.B. Smoove, Ray Allen and Baron Davis. The film's supporting cast includes Shaquille O'Neal, Chris Webber, Reggie Miller, Lisa Leslie and Aaron Gordon.
A favorite highlight for me personally is the scene during the introduction of Episode 2, when Uncle Drew and Bill Russell have a conversation in which the latter says: “What these young bloods have to understand, that this game, has always been and it will always be about buckets”. I hope followers of the “European style” of basketball do not hold that against me. Around the same time as the first episodes of Uncle Drew, Kyrie Irving had a guest appearance in the Disney XD series Kickin' It, and in 2018 he lent his voice to the cartoon character Vernon The Water Bear in the episode of Family Guy entitled “Big Trouble in Little Quahog”.
Irving is still on the list of the most socially conscious athletes because his interventions are numerous. Starting with the creation of the KAI Family Foundation, the charitable foundation that bears the initials of his full name, through which he collaborates with various organizations to implement programs that affect almost every area of social life. In education, KAIFF works openly with The Eagle Academy Education to create a network for providing electronic devices and instruction in e-learning methods to students attending prep schools or preparing for college who reside in the New York metropolitan area. To date, approximately 1500 individuals have benefited from this program.
In 2019, the Foundation, in collaboration with Project Maji, funded the purchase of 6 water pumps, 3 for Northern Ghana and 3 for Kenya, and also helped plant trees in the Mukengesta region, also in Kenya. The cooperating parties' plan also includes the construction and delivery of 6 automatic water dispensers to schools in the wider area. Of similar scope and interest is the collaboration with Paani, a non-governmental organization in Pakistan, in the construction of a solar water treatment center. In addition to optimizing water quality, the KAI Family Foundation, in partnership with Fresh Direct and Eastside Settlement, organizes annual donations of food and essentials for residents of the John P. Mitchel Houses in the South Bronx.
The foundation is also committed to good self-help practices, women's empowerment and social change. Most notably, Kyrie himself and members of the foundation as a whole supported the #SayHerName movement, which advocates for Breonna Taylor - a victim of police brutality - and against the cover-up of this case and have worked with Players TV on a television program entitled ‘‘#SayHerName, Justice For Breonna Taylor’’ which also aired on BET. The foundation's latest campaign/collaboration, which targets young girls ages 8-13 and focuses on empowerment, acceptance and counseling, is on the same wavelength. The program is called SOAR Girl! and falls under the umbrella of I am B.E.A.U.T.Y.
Kyrie off the court
Kyrie is not only committed to the community through the actions of his foundation, but also personally. Again, we must list a number of donations, such as that of $323,000 to the organization Feeding America, which provided 250,000 servings of food during the pandemic in collaboration with the other organization City Harvest. He donated a house for the family of George Floyd. Through his foundation, he also paid the tuition for 9 students at Lincoln University, the renovation of the gym and recreational areas of the high school he attended, and the tuition for a student at the same school who was struggling with severe health problems. He recently donated $50,000 to Flint, Michigan water crisis activist Mari Copeny. The GoFundMe fund, called the "Little Miss Flint Clean Water Fund," has already received 23,500 donations totaling $807,800, with a goal of $1 billion.1
The pandemic was a tough test for sports. Leagues that did not generate high revenues and did not have enough money invested in them were especially forced to "cease operations "in the face of impending financial strangulation." Traditionally, the WNBA has been castigated by proponents of uncontrolled liberal and technocratic economic policies in the sports sector. It has been called a loss-making league that cannot sustain itself financially and will always be dependent on the NBA. Uncle Drew, on the other hand, may have a different opinion, knowing better the finances of the women's league and the (meager) salaries they receive. With that in mind, his decision to donate $1.5 million to women's basketball players who were not competing either because of widespread health concerns or in protest of social injustices should not surprise us - after all, memories of the Taylor and Floyd cases were still very vivid.
At the end of 2016, he had already publicly tweeted that he supported all those protesting alongside the Standing Rock Sioux tribe against the construction of an oil pipeline in North Dakota by the company Energy Transfer Partners, which would cause massive environmental destruction in the event of an accident. The mobilizations were massive, as were the arrests of the protesters, while at the same time, a major legal battle began between the two parties.
Conspiracy theories & under pressure critics
So it's time to look at the misunderstood side of Kyrie Irving, because most of the time he was the center of attention without necessarily wanting to be. “The earth is flat”, he claimed in February 2017 during a guest appearance on Richard Jefferson & Channing Frye's podcast Road Trippin' with R.J. & Channing Frye, and immediately found himself at the center of public backlash. A few months later, he retracted his claim, saying he never expected his statement to have such an impact.
He professes to be a fan of conspiracy theories and therefore does not hesitate to (re)tweet various video links that can be described as gleefully controversial. One of them also concerns the video of Alex Jones, the founder of InfoWars, which was about ΝWO and some other occult theories. Alex Jones, by the way, was ordered to pay almost $1 billion in damages to the aggrieved parties he dealt with in his video tirades. In fact, Kareem Abdul-Jabbar had again made critical comments on the case in his blog at KAI because he had published the video in question. Previously, KAJ had also been critical of Irving's decision not to get vaccinated.
Hélà, who played for the Brooklyn Nets at the time, expressed his desire not to be vaccinated with the following words: “It’s not always about the money. It’s about choosing what’s best for you”, adding that: “Once again, I’m going to repeat this. This is not about the Nets, this is not about the organization, it’s not about the NBA, it’s not politics”. He was clearly not against vaccination, but wanted to support his decision to the contrary. Due to New York's strict health and safety protocols, Irving was absent from the club's home games, which meant a financial loss for him.
The relationship between Irving and the Nets was put to the test one more time before its final dissolution, and it was an even more disastrous one. Late last October, KAI tweeted a link to a movie titled: “Hebrews to Negroes: Wake Up Black America!” about the release of a book with the same title that the movie's production was based on. The producer of the movie and author of the book, Ronald Dalton Jr. was in the spotlight when he was accused of promoting anti-Semitic content with his work. So we can well understand why Irving was accused of doing just that, promoting anti-Semitic content, as he was quickly labeled a racist.
The Anti-Defamation League, the organization that fights hate speech and anti-Semitism, responded immediately, condemning Irving's move, while the board refused to accept his $500,000 donation. The Nets organization called on Kyrie to take a series of steps to return to the team. These include participating in educational and informational programs on the issue, speaking with leaders of relevant organizations such as the ADL, a public apology and condemnation of the aforementioned film, and a meeting with Brooklyn Nets owner Joe Tsai. The Commissioner of the NBA, Adam Silver, immediately condemned KAI's actions and suspended him for the next 5 games.
I think almost all of us can imagine what could have happened next in this story. Hélà apologized for those he had hurt with the controversial tweet, which he even deleted a few days later. All the media uproar against Kyrie resulted in his contract with Nike being terminated almost 1 year before the official expiration date. The financial loss to the company will not be insignificant, as Irving's shoe collection is the second best-selling behind LeBron James' - not counting Jordan brand, as it is considered a different brand. Considering all these facts, KAI asked to be released by the Nets on a rather unexpected date, February 5, 2023 and moved to the Dallas Mavericks until today. Does that make sense? Of course, because the Nets organization did not handle the case more discreetly.
To look at the other side of the coin, there were some who did not consider KAI unfit for his deed. Their main arguments were, first, Amazon's decision to maintain an active order/purchase link for the book or movie and thus make a profit without suffering the same backlash as Irving, and second, the comparison to the cases of veteran NFL star Brett Favre , even if they can not be seen in the same light.
We can characterize him in different ways for how he cultivates his public image, but he definitely does not go unnoticed. Whether we agree with Kyrie's views or not, we have to give him credit for the honesty with which he represents his own truth. It's brave and solid. If anyone wants to understand Kyrie's mindset, he/she can follow his presence on social media and platforms like Twitch. Now, if someone were to ask me to write an ideal epilog for this article, I would tell them that there is no ideal epilog. For everything. And I believe that. So, Hélà, express yourself like the N.W.A. did...
Manos Karousos
For more information about the water crisis in Flint, Michigan, please visit the following link: https://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-way/2016/04/20/465545378/lead-laced-water-in-flint-a-step-by-step-look-at-the-makings-of-a-crisis