Kyrie Irving opens up on doomed Nets era after Kevin Durant questioned his commitment
After Kevin Durant and Steve Nash sat down to discuss what went wrong in Brooklyn, fellow ex-Net Kyrie Irving promised a response.
Tuesday night he gave one.
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Or many.
Brooklyn’s Big 3 imploded with the stars getting Nash fired and then forcing their way out.
Durant made waves recently on the “Mind the Game” podcast by suggesting that Irving and James Harden hadn’t been as committed to making the superteam work.
“When (Durant) said this, emotionally, I was like, ‘OK.’ We’re all committed to the goal at the end of the day, but sometimes not everybody’s going to follow what you want them to do,” Irving began on his Twitch stream. “I wish I had my soundboard for this, but not everybody’s going to do what you want them to do.
“Not everybody’s going to be committed the way you want them to be committed.”
Irving acknowledged he might not have committed at all if he’d been more mature and gotten to know Brooklyn’s brass first, before signing.
“(I didn’t meet) the Nets front office one time. I didn’t meet with the GM one time, the assistant GM one time, literally,” Irving said. “When I look back at that decision, I’m like, man, I should’ve taken some more time to delegate and figure out what’s best for me.”
The All-Star guard suggested that the Nets had been leery about him but really wanted Durant —something The Post had reported before they signed.
“Brooklyn, I wish that we got a chance to get to know them beforehand, because they wasn’t f–king with me like that. And that’s just me; that’s my perspective,” Irving said. “Now, did they want me on the team? Sure, you could say that. But Kenny Atkinson wasn’t f–king with me like that, bro. They didn’t want me like that. They wanted K. And that’s my vantage point, right? This is the information that I gathered after I left.
“I wish I would’ve handled the business better and got a chance to know them first, ask them questions, ‘hey, what’s the future like?’ Instead of just committing blindly and thinking that ‘hey, we’re about to come in here and just do X, Y, and Z’ I didn’t have much power going in there. I couldn’t say who we could get and who we could not get. I couldn’t hire the coach. You guys knew my opinion on the head coach at the time.
“It wasn’t perfect, but it was very immature. I was very immature at that point; 27, 28…When I was in Brooklyn, I just look back at the businesses like, yo, get to know the front office before you make any decision.”
While Irving claimed he didn’t have power to shape the team, he said Durant was responsible for bringing in Nash after Atkinson’s ouster.
Irving averaged 27.1 points, 5.8 assists and 4.8 rebounds for Brooklyn, an All-Star on the court. But he’ll also be remembered for drama off the court, suspended to start 2021-22 for refusing to adhere to the city’s COVID-19 vaccine mandates.
The guard got suspended again the next season after promoting an antisemitic film called “Hebrews to Negroes: Wake Up Black America.” He eventually demanded and got a move at the trade deadline to the Mavericks in February 2023 — but tried to get waived in 2021.
Warning: Graphic language
“Even the people that I was in business with were pro-vaccine,” Irving said. “I’m like, OK, look, that’s fine, but just leave me the f–k out of this and let me go somewhere. I even told the Nets to release me. I said, ‘yo, can you please just release me?’ And, obviously, the money situation — different situation, I’m f–king Kyrie. I say that very aware of my position, but they weren’t just going to let me rock out.”
Irving stressed he had no issue with either Durant or Nash.
“Me and KD are not beefing,” Irving said. “I’m not beefing with Steve Nash. I’m not beefing with anybody.”
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