Getty Kyrie Irving #11 of the Brooklyn Nets and head coach Jacque Vaughn talk during a pause in play during the first half of a game against the Washington Wizards
In October, the Brooklyn Nets owner Joe Tsai issued strong criticism for his team’s starting point guard Kyrie Irving on Twitter. Tsai’s tweet was in response to Irving posting a link to a documentary full of antisemitic rhetoric. He shared that he was ‘disappointed’ in Irving, and the team later issued Irving a suspension for his slowly issued apology. After completing a list of demands to return from his suspension, Irving has played outstanding. In December, he averaged 27.5 points per game while also dishing 5.3 assists per game. He also hit his first buzzer-beating game-winner of his career on December 16 against the Toronto Raptors.
Joe Tsai Goes Viral For Kyrie Irving Tweet
Nets’ owner Joe Tsai took to Twitter to share his excitement about the Irving buzzer-beater, “This morning I woke up and watched this 100 times,” Tsai exclaimed in a tweet, followed by a trio of prayer hand emojis.
It’s hard not to be excited about this Nets team currently. They have won 9 out of their last 10 games. Irving is playing well, but their big three of Durant, Irving, and Ben Simmons finally seem to have gelled. The Nets also have proven to have a good deal of depth. TJ Warren has returned to the lineup, and it looks like he still has the ability to score and is averaging 8.3 points per game in his first 6 appearances this season. Cam Thomas had a career-high 33-point game on December 10 against the Indiana Pacers and continues to push for more minutes and adds point guard depth with Patty Mills and Edmund Sumner.
Because of their play, the rumors about potential Irving and Durant trades have been silenced after they ramped up during Irving’s team-issued suspension. The current state of the Nets is a drastic contrast to when Tsai considered waiving Irving in October because of his behavior on social media.
Nets Owners Considered Waiving Kyrie Irving in October
On a November 9 appearance on The Dan Le Batard Show with Stu Gotz, Matt Sullivan, Rolling Stone writer and author of Can’t Knock the Hustle: Inside the Season of Protest, Pandemic, and Progress with the Brooklyn Nets’ Superstars of Tomorrow, shared that he heard from sources that after watching the documentary that was shared to Kyrie’s social accounts, they considered releasing their All-Star point guard.
“I was told that the Tsai’s (Joe and Clara) watched this entire – an entirely vile documentary on their couch two weekends ago and that they thought about potentially cutting Kyrie. This is even though the lying GM of the Nets, Sean Marks, said last week that the team never considered it. But I was told that the Tsai’s kind of realized that they’d be making a martyr, as you guys have discussed, out of a stubborn fool. So maybe those conditions to return are a way to kind of be able to release him without Kyrie taking the money and martyrdom with him,” Sullivan said.
According to the reporting from Sullivan, the Tsai’s didn’t waive Irving to avoid making him a martyr of free speech, and if this run of hot play from the Nets continues, it could be a decision they are glad they didn’t make. Can Irving play at a level that the Tsai’s will give him a contract after his current one expires this offseason? That is the next question looming in Brooklyn.