A whole lot of people think Brooklyn Nets star Kyrie Irving should be suspended after he promoted an antisemitic film on his Instagram and Twitter accounts, and then proceeded to blast the media during a press conference after being questioned about it. Former NBA stars Charles Barkley and Shaquille O’Neal referred to Irving as “an idiot” Tuesday on TNT’s Inside the NBA, with Barkley repeatedly saying that Irving needs to be suspended, for example.
Instead, Irving was allowed to play during Tuesday’s game against the Chicago Bulls, which was shown nationally on TNT. And he turned in one of the worst performances of his NBA career.
Irving scored just four points in 33 minutes played and was 2-of-12 on field goal attempts in a 108-99 Nets loss (Chicago outscored Brooklyn 31-19 in the fourth quarter). The seven-time All-Star had a game-worst plus/minus of -14.
https://youtu.be/gXd95GFMlD8?t=19
He didn’t even score a point through three quarters.
It was the first time in Irving’s career that he didn’t score at least five points over at least 24 minutes played.
This all came just hours after the Nets parted ways with head coach Steve Nash. And then reports surfaced that the Nets are likely to hire suspended Celtics coach Ime Udoka. Additionally, Brooklyn general manager Sean Marks said that Irving would not speak with the media on Tuesday night because the Nets “don’t want to cause more fuss right now” and want to let Irving “simmer down.” The drama doesn’t stop with the Nets.
Here’s a look at how the basketball world is reacting to one of the worst performances of Irving’s career:
About Matt Clapp
Matt is an editor/writer at The Comeback and Awful Announcing.
He can be reached by email at mclapp@thecomeback.com.