‘He blew his last chance’: How Kyrie could have avoided suspension with just ‘two words’
Kyrie Irving refused to apologise for posting a hyperlink to anti-semitic materials and has now been suspended by the Brooklyn Nets for at the very least 5 video games. It didn’t should be that approach.
Silver pushed for an apology from Irving and denouncing of the anti-semitic content material in a movie the Nets playmaker boosted on social media, however Irving stopped in need of each in a news convention later, saying solely that he took duty for the publish.
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“I don’t know how the label becomes justified,” Irving mentioned. “Just because I post a documentary (link) doesn’t mean I’m anti-semitic. It doesn’t mean I’m automatically standing with everyone that is believing in that.
“I cannot be anti-semitic if I know where I come from.”
Silver was happy with Irving’s donation and assertion however sought extra.
“Kyrie Irving made a reckless decision to post a link to a film containing deeply offensive antisemitic material,” Silver mentioned in a press release.
“While we appreciate the fact that he agreed to work with the Brooklyn Nets and the Anti-Defamation League to combat anti-semitism and other forms of discrimination, I am disappointed that he has not offered an unqualified apology and more specifically denounced the vile and harmful content contained in the film he chose to publicize.
“I will be meeting with Kyrie in person in the next week to discuss this situation.”
Asked if he was sorry after Silver’s assertion, Irving replied, “I take my responsibility for posting that.
“Some things that were questionable in there, untrue… I didn’t mean to cause any harm. I’m not the one that made the documentary.”
Pressed on what he noticed as incorrect within the film, Irving mentioned, “Some of the criticism of the Jewish faith and the community, for sure,” and described Holocaust denial as a “falsehood.”
Speaking on ESPN after the press convention, reporter Nick Friedell mentioned Irving would have made the method a lot simpler if he had uttered two easy phrases.
“All the league and so many people in the Nets organisation wanted to hear were the words ‘I’m sorry’ and Kyrie did not want to go there,” Friedell mentioned.
“He fell short of getting to that point. They also wanted to hear ‘I don’t have anti-Semitic beliefs’. In Kyrie’s own way he answered it but he did not say those words. As we were walking back to transcribe everything we had just heard, I think a lot of people were just looking around like, ‘Kyrie could make this so much easier for himself moving forward by just answering the questions in front of him’, but he wants to feel like he’s in control.”
Jonathan Greenblatt, in the meantime, the CEO of the Anti-Defamation League, wrote in a tweet that the ADL “took [Irving] at his word when he said he took responsibility, but today he did not make good on that promise.”
Sports Illustrated’s Michael Rosenberg, in the meantime, wrote that Irving wanted to be suspended by the NBA earlier than Brooklyn ultimately made the choice to just do that.
“Enough already. It is time to suspend Kyrie Irving. No more dancing around the issue, no more chances for Irving to stand near a microphone and do his shifty pseudo-intellectual/martyr act,” Rosenberg wrote.
“He cannot be trusted to say, do or even think the right thing, and so Adam Silver or the Nets have to do it for him.
“Irving blew his last chance at a genuine apology with another debacle of a press conference. He had ample opportunity to denounce what should so obviously be denounced, and he still did not do it.
“He has proven himself uninterested in self-reflection and incapable of a sincere apology because he is so committed to presenting himself as the deep thinker that he clearly is not.”
