Who is Kyrie Irving? NBA star at center of COVID vaccine issue is certainly one thing: complex
Who is Kyrie Irving?
Who is anyone?
In other words, who do we truly know?
Setting out to tell you who the Brooklyn Nets star is isn’t fruitless, but who most of us see is just a fraction of who that person is. Even with social media and interviews, we only know so much about a public figure. It’s why in this job I’ve tried to refrain from playing armchair psychologist.
Irving, like many of us, is complex: smart, thoughtful, stubborn, contrary, inquisitive, direct, enigmatic, iconoclastic, determined, confounding, kind, giving, deliberate, evasive, compassionate – and based on interactions with those close to him – loving.
When it comes to Irving’s NBA career, he is deliberate – where he plays, with whom he plays and now under the conditions in which he plays.
On Tuesday, the Nets parked Irving on the sideline until he can fully participate in all games – meaning Irving won’t play for Nets until he is vaccinated or New York City vaccine mandate.
The Nets are willing to go an entire season without Irving. Is Irving willing to go a whole season without basketball and forfeit $381,181 in salary per home game? It’s fascinating dichotomy, and while it’s just a game, it’s a high-stakes, ultra-competitive, billion-dollar game.
“You think I really want to give up on my dream to go after a championship? You think I really just want to give up my job?” Irving said on Instagram Live late Wednesday.
Irving, 29, is in his 11th NBA season, a career with one title, seven All-Star Game appearances (including one in his second NBA season) and three All-NBA selections. He is one the game’s greatest shotmakers – none bigger than his 3-pointer late in the fourth quarter of Game 7 of the NBA finals against Golden State in 2016 that helped Cleveland win the title.
Until late Wednesday night, Irving had asked media to respect his privacy about why he wasn’t vaccinated. On Instagram Live, he explained his reasoning saying he was doing what’s best for him. He also voiced concern for people who are losing jobs to vaccine mandates without specifically addressing people who have lost their lives to COVID because they had no choice but to work when a vaccine wasn’t available.
He repeated that he doesn’t want to see people divided, pushing for peace rather than conflict regarding the vaccine, but that’s not feasible in a politicized pandemic in which 700,000 Americans have died and thousands of families have been devastated.
Irving also maintains he isn’t going to retire, insists he loves basketball and wants to be out there with his teammates competing for a championship. But he doesn’t believe the vaccine is right for him. As of now. It won’t surprise anyone if he becomes vaccinated.
Even when earnest, he is unpredictable.
Irving often believes he has important things to say, and in covering Irving’s career for more than a decade, I’ve heard him address some of those issues – including the idea that “We’re humans first and then basketball players,” which is what he told reporters at the start of the 2019-20 season.
Irving’s sincerity about issues shouldn’t be doubted. He bought a home for George Floyd’s family, regularly provides meals to those in need, paid tuition for HBCU students, donated money to WNBA players who didn’t play in 2020 because they were considered at-risk for contracting COVID.
How he goes about it sometimes can be maddening as he seeks both privacy and a prominent voice.
Even last year, when he declined to speak to the media and was fined, his reasoning lacked clarity, writing, “So stop distracting me and my team, and appreciate the art. We move different over here. I do not talk to pawns. My attention is worth more.”
But contradictions are also human qualities and don’t make Irving a bad person even as he has frustrated, at some point, every team for which he has played – giving Cleveland the silent treatment at practices, throwing younger teammates under the bus in Boston and his time in and out of the lineup with Brooklyn.
It seemed Irving chafed at being in James’ shadow in Cleveland, but after the trade to Boston, he called James to apologize for how he acted as a younger player while acknowledging he should have kept his criticism of younger Celtics teammates in house.
After leaving Boston for Brooklyn, he admitted he failed as a leader in Boston.
On his IG Live Wednesday, he didn’t shy from mistakes he has made.
Sometimes, Irving is enlightening as he was at the start of the 2019-20 season. Irving, whose mom died when he was 4 years old, said the death of his grandfather in October 2018 compelled him to play for Brooklyn – closer to his family and tight circle of friends.
His exploration of Islam and his connection to his mother’s Native American ancestry reveal a spiritual side.
But these are only sides of a person we see.
At the start of the 2017-18 season – Irving’s first in Boston after requesting a trade from Cleveland – reporters tried to get LeBron James to reveal any information he had about Irving wanting out fro a team that had played in three consecutive NBA Finals.
Asked if he had any contact with Irving following the trade that summer, James said, “You guys know Kyrie.”
Which is another way of saying, yes, we know a little bit about Irving, but there’s a lot we don’t know.