STORY BY CRISTIAN SANDOVAL
STAFF WRITER
PHOTO CREDIT AP NEWS
The Brooklyn Nets shocked the basketball world by getting swept in the first round of the 2022 NBA play-offs by the Boston Celtics.
Three days after their surprising exit from the playoffs, NBA Nets player Kyrie Irving took to Twitter where he specifically criticized and lashed out against media corporations for having felt he has been unfairly attacked by.
“ Their job is to CONTROL PUBLIC PERCEPTION, all while profiting off discussing, discrediting, and disrespecting people’s lives for entertainment,”
– Kyrie Irving in one of his Twitter posts, April 28, 2022
“ I send shots at the puppet masters, not the pup- pets. All puppets do is run around society, trying to gain popularity and state opinions. What a life!”
– Kyrie Irving in one of his Twitter posts, April 28, 2022
The tweets have been negatively received by the media and all over the sports world and rightfully so. This season alone, Irving played 29 games of 82 available. Due to his vaccination status at the beginning of the season, Irving was unable to play or practice with his team.
Irving would go on to miss the first two months of the season. After being unable to keep a healthy roster available, the Brooklyn Nets finally decided to bring Irving back but only as a part timer, meaning he was only going to be available to play on road games.
Since the Nets acquired All-Stars Kevin Durant and Irving in 2019, Brooklyn has only made it as far as the second round. In his first season with the Nets, Irving only participated in 20 games. Given that the season was shortened because of the pandemic, the Nets were able to make it into the NBA playoffs in the bubble in which Irving took no part and was eliminated in the first round.
In his second season with the team, the point-guard only took part in 54 games. The Nets were able to finally have Kevin Durant and Irving on the basketball floor for the playoffs and made it past the first round but ran into the Milwaukee Bucks in the next round. Unfortunately, Irving suffered an ankle injury that made him miss Games 5, 6, and 7.
Nobody is blind to the talent that Irving has. He is by far one of the most skillful point guards out there in the league. But the fact that he is not taking responsibility for his failure with the Nets after he signed with them in free agency is what caused the media to criticize him.
While getting paid millions of dollars, Irving only shows up half of the time to work and the moment the media calls him out on that, he goes on a rant. He left Kevin Durant hanging all season and left him carrying the load all by himself.
Irving is the biggest reason Kevin Durant is in Brooklyn after all and he hasn’t been on the court half the time and has made it apparent that basketball is not his priority and has definitely affected his team’s performance.
As one of the leaders of this Nets team, Irving is not fulfilling his obligations and must take accountability and stop making excuses for his struggles out on the court.
