After his NBA season ended sooner than he expected, Kyrie Irving has taken up live streaming. In a graphic scene, the Dallas Mavericks star tore his ACL during a game against the Sacramento Kings on March 3 and will hopefully return to the lineup next season when he is fully recovered.
In his live stream on Saturday, the nine-time All-Star broke into a rant about racism and how it still affects people of color. The 32-year-old also called out the stupidity and hypocrisy behind the discrimination that is still running rampant in the society.
“Growing up in this society, just because you have this skin tone, you have different rules to abide by—or you can’t be proud of your history because of skin tone, because people really got killed because of [it],” Kyrie Irving said.
“Do you realize how stupid that is? You know how ignorant you’ve gotta be to put somebody in a tree and hang them because they’re Black?” he added. “That’s probably the dumbest sh*t I’ve ever heard, to be honest with you…it’s the dumbest sh*t ever for me.”
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Kyrie Irving also talked about the narrative that Black people ought to work hard for a better chance at prosperity. He also said that it’s difficult to climb up the social order of a community that is built on a system that tries to oppress people of color. To drive home his point of living in a prejudiced society, he recalled the nasty things he had to head on the hardwood regularly.
Kyrie Irving has endured racism a few times in the span of his NBA career. One fan once assaulted him in 2021 when he was still with the Brooklyn Nets, throwing a water bottle at him following a playoff game between the Nets and the Boston Celtics.
Kyrie Irving addressed fans who blame his ACL injury on increased load
Kyrie Irving’s role as a scorer for the Dallas Mavericks became much more important when the team lost Luka Doncic to a trade and then Anthony Davis to an adductor injury. He put in some overtime work to make up for Davis’ absence, playing 36.1 minutes on average.
This led fans to claim that Irving’s increased workload was to blame for his recent ACL injury. He has since addressed those talks during his live stream on Saturday.
“If you ask 95% of the league if they [would] rather be playing 15 minutes or 35 minutes a night, I guarantee you 95% of them would say 35 minutes,” Irving said. “I led the league in minutes, so the f*** what…”
Irving was not ready to leave the court after he tore his ACL during the game against the Kings. He still managed to walk to the free-throw line—albeit assisted—and took his two free throws before exiting the game.
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