Getty Nets guard Kyrie Irving
Why is Brooklyn Nets point guard, Kyrie Irving villanized?
I asked his godfather and NBA legend, Rod Strickland.
“I know his family and I know where he’s from,” Strickland told me on the Heavy Live With Scoop B Show.
“I know his cloth and Kyrie’s just different, right? He thinks different and I think people don’t like that. We live in a world now where everybody thinks if you say this and I’m supposed to go along with you and if I’m against that, then I’m wrong. And then you feel that you have to ostracize me or put me down because I’m not speaking the same language you’re speaking. Kyrie’s different. You can just watch him play basketball and tell that he’s different. He thinks different, you know? You can’t do the things he does on the court without being creative, so his mind is different. His thoughts of what he thinks of certain things may be different. And so, a lot of times I always – I’m one of those people that I’m not too much into trying to dissect the person that everybody’s talking about him; you’re usually thinking about the person who’s talking about the person [laughs], you know what I mean? I’m like a lot of times, I try to think of their reasoning or why they’re doing that, you know? Because he is who he is, you know what I mean? He’s an incredible basketball player, he won a championship, perennial All-Star, sure fire Hall of Fame, intelligent, good looking; you know…obviously has made all types of money. He’s done plenty of things in the community, so what’s the issue? So you don’t agree with whatever he agrees with?… like, it’s hard for me sometimes to see like, successful people getting chopped down, you know? It’s like you become successful and then it’s all this judgment and I don’t mean to say this in a wrong way but, you’re judged by people who haven’t accomplished what you accomplished. And to me, that becomes frustrating but then it’s like, you can’t give your energy to that; and you know, that’s my conversations with Ky like, “You can’t give your energy to that because it doesn’t matter…” because he’s solid. What has he done wrong? But not to agree with something they said or may have different views… I mean, he’s one of the top players and I’m even going to get into the numbers because it would be subjective, but I’ll say this to you and they can say whatever they want to say; if you’re talking about skill and talent, you have to tell me another player in NBA history who’s as skilled and talented as Kyrie is. The great Isiah Thomas who you said you just had…now I’ve seen him and I’ve seen him before the Bad Boys when he first came to the Pistons; I’ve seen him in Chicago at the Push Excel [Basketball Classic], so I’ve seen Isiah do some things that I don’t think a lot of people have seen. So if you want to name Isiah skillswise, cool. But other than that, it’s hard.”