But he has already been suspended (held accountable), the indefinite/arbitrary punishment is what JB and Lebron(earlier) have an issue with.
Kyrie went 5-16 in getting eliminated and we have schadenfreude.
- Thread starter jose melendez
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That's not all they take issue with. They claim that he didn't mean anything by it. Meanwhile, through his words and actions, Kyrie seemed to demonstrate to everyone that he meant something by it. Yes, the punishment is unusual, but that's only because the behavior is unusual.
What are you talking about? Jaylen is representing Kyrie in a potential Players Union grievance……why would you expect him to be calling out the person he’s representing? C’mon, this isn’t about “public” right now this is business.
Maybe they shouldn’t be in leadership positions if they aren’t going to take the lead in a potential grievance case. You’re making it sounds as if them doing nothing is making Jaylen look bad by taking the lead in the case.
Given his initial statement about the Kanye situation and subsequent flip because of "his platform" it is possible that he is both speaking in his function as a union rep but also sharing his actual beliefs on the matter. I think it's perfectly fair to discuss this as if he does actually think what Kyrie did is not so bad.
My point is that whatever Jaylen believes isn’t relevant to his role in the union nor should it be. He’s saying exactly what he’s supposed to be saying as a union leader. It’s standard lawyer speak.
Jaylen condemning Kyrie’s stance publicly while representing the Players Associstion wouldn’t be any different than Robert Shapiro and Johnny Cochran condemning OJ’s behavior and actions that night while then later representing his defense.
He is not a lawyer though. It is inconceivable that his comments are somewhat shaped by his personal beliefs in the matter?
He’s acting as a union leader. That’s about as close as a lawyer while using the same language as one can get.
In the abstract, I think Brown has reason to take issue with Tsai's statement, because it implies that there's some logical process of steps ("work") that one does to emerge out the other side of this as an acceptable person. And so Brown is asking, what is this series of steps, who defines what the acceptable goal state is, and what exactly is Kyrie absolving himself of anyway (antisemitism vs. just accidental hurtful gesture, etc)? After all, the idea that there's a set process one can go through to be scrubbed of wrongdoing after antisemitic tweeting is pretty absurd on several levels.
The thing is, Tsai and the Nets aren't trying to fix or change Kyrie's beliefs. All they want is to exact a price on Kyrie for this so that he thinks twice before opening his mouth next time. That's all this is. And the opacity around the standards they are setting ("Kyrie's ready to come back when we say he's ready to come back") is part of the point, to indicate who holds the cards here. In this prism of salvaging a business relationship, their actions make sense. In the prism of fixing society's ills, not so much, which is what Brown is taking aim at.
The thing is, Tsai and the Nets aren't trying to fix or change Kyrie's beliefs. All they want is to exact a price on Kyrie for this so that he thinks twice before opening his mouth next time. That's all this is. And the opacity around the standards they are setting ("Kyrie's ready to come back when we say he's ready to come back") is part of the point, to indicate who holds the cards here. In this prism of salvaging a business relationship, their actions make sense. In the prism of fixing society's ills, not so much, which is what Brown is taking aim at.
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But Jaylem Brown should well know that the Nets' response to Kyrie's one-two punch of posting that video and steadfast refusal to apologize for it and acknowledge it's potential harm (until his paycheck was jeopardized) could NEVER "fix society's ills." At most, it could send a message to Kyrie, the other players, the media and the common public that such actions are not acceptable. And that, in turn, could contribute, hopefully, to raising awareness that anti-semitism and hostility to any particular group of people are not OK. And that, together with a whole lot of other things, might move the ball in the direction of fixing at least some of society's ills, of which hating on a subset of the population, while extremely important to address and rectify, is one of many.
My point is that the Nets never needed to "fix" anything. They just had to do their part.
I do think that the laundry list of steps that Kyrie had to accomplish was a bit long and perhaps overly in the Nets' subjective control, and it felt a little like he was being hazed. But damn, if there was ever a player whose actions screamed out "make an example out of me," it's Kyrie Irving. Nothing happens in a vacuum, and if I owned the Nets, you're damn straight that I would have less tolerance for and more tendency to "over punish" a man with Kyrie's record of stink in Brooklyn.
Incidentally, that the Nets have generally played better without Kyrie on the roster is just delicious.
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Yeah, I just think that if the Nets were primarily focused on the "public" aspect of this, they would have made the process more of a transparent quid pro quo: apologize in such and such format and you will be cleared to play. That would have done the job of communicating, "we don't tolerate antisemitism and anyone who expresses antisemitic views must apologize for them" and would have been enough to band-aid the situation and move forward, if that's what they wanted. And it would have been enough to insulate them from most of the criticism they're getting from Brown and other players.
The problem is, they know that if they make this easy for Kyrie, he'll flap his gums again about something else and they'll be right back here in controversy with an unrepentant player in a matter of months, if not weeks or days. To me, this treatment feels intended to put Kyrie in position where he doesn't get to feel that he's in charge. It feels designed to be a little bit unfair, which is to say, to avoid giving him a clear set of rules that he can then game.
Edit: put another way, the Nets simply demanding an apology would send the message, "You can get back on the court if you're not an antisemite" — but would leave KI free to make other ridiculous controversial statements. I think the Nets here are effectively saying, "You can get back on the court if you're not a dick— and we get to decide what constitutes being a dick, so think about that next time you talk to the media."
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Since Day 1 of this latest Kyrie issue (the initial tweet about the movie), I have believed that it is another example of Kyrie spouting off half-baked (quarter-baked?) on something he thinks makes him sound intellectual and/or cutting edge and/or against the grain. Whether it be his so-called flat earth beliefs or his stance on vaccinations or now his opinions about Hebrews to Negroes, he has a pattern of going off on random word salads that make him sound (in his mind) like a great thinker, like a challenger of the flock-accepted status quo, but in reality simply make him sound like an idiot. But unlike his flat-earth diatribes, his stances and tweets about vaccines and now HtN have deeper and darker implications which he simply can't foresee and, what's worse, implications which he won't reject when they are revealed to him by others.
So I think it is very possible that Jaylen, LeBron and Adam Silver can each honestly say "I don't believe Kyrie is anti-Semitic." The unfortunate part about those statements, and the part that is almost inherent in the nature of Tweets and today's sound-bite media mentality is that that becomes the only statement issued at worst, or taken out of context at best. A more nuanced and complete statement might read something more like "Although the film HtN which Kyrie referenced brings up some questions about society's issues with race, unfortunately, those questions are wrapped up in other statements of anti-semitism and fascism that are false and inflammatory. I (<JB> or <LBJ> or <AS>) know Kyrie outside of the world of tweets and believe that KI is NOT anti-Semitic in his heart, and has gone out of his way to promote racial equality for all. That being said, I cannot condone his support of this film for the aforementioned reasons."
Unfortunately, all of that gets distilled down to "I (<JB> or <LBJ> or <AS>) know Kyrie outside of the world of tweets and believe that KI is NOT anti-Semitic."
Or put another less kind way: "I (<JB> or <LBJ> or <AS>) know Kyrie outside of the world of tweets and believe that KI is NOT anti-Semitic; he's just an idiot who likes to hear himself talk."
So I think it is very possible that Jaylen, LeBron and Adam Silver can each honestly say "I don't believe Kyrie is anti-Semitic." The unfortunate part about those statements, and the part that is almost inherent in the nature of Tweets and today's sound-bite media mentality is that that becomes the only statement issued at worst, or taken out of context at best. A more nuanced and complete statement might read something more like "Although the film HtN which Kyrie referenced brings up some questions about society's issues with race, unfortunately, those questions are wrapped up in other statements of anti-semitism and fascism that are false and inflammatory. I (<JB> or <LBJ> or <AS>) know Kyrie outside of the world of tweets and believe that KI is NOT anti-Semitic in his heart, and has gone out of his way to promote racial equality for all. That being said, I cannot condone his support of this film for the aforementioned reasons."
Unfortunately, all of that gets distilled down to "I (<JB> or <LBJ> or <AS>) know Kyrie outside of the world of tweets and believe that KI is NOT anti-Semitic."
Or put another less kind way: "I (<JB> or <LBJ> or <AS>) know Kyrie outside of the world of tweets and believe that KI is NOT anti-Semitic; he's just an idiot who likes to hear himself talk."
I think that's a really good take, @Saints Rest.
The "Kyrie as Pseudo Intellectual who unknowingly reveals himself to be dopey when he's trying to sound brainy" was always an extremly fun part of the schadenfreude mix with him. Anti-Semitism was a new possibility, and another reason to dump on this wholly unlikable character. It very well may be fair to meet Kyrie and come away believing that he truly does not not having those feelings and is just a dipshit.
One reason why it's hard to consider that in Jaylen's case is that, for reasons I've noted upthread, I think it's at least possible that JB has some measure of bad feelings for Jews within him. I don't pretend to know; it's only a sense from how he conducted himself with regard to Kanye and some of his somewhat sloppy comments around Kyrie. A sense from afar, to be sure.
And I don't believe that about LeBron, as much as I find him to be generally distasteful. Or Adam Silver, for that matter.
I could be wrong about all of them. Silver could be as self-hating as a Jew gets for all I know. Anyway, I digress. Again.
The "Kyrie as Pseudo Intellectual who unknowingly reveals himself to be dopey when he's trying to sound brainy" was always an extremly fun part of the schadenfreude mix with him. Anti-Semitism was a new possibility, and another reason to dump on this wholly unlikable character. It very well may be fair to meet Kyrie and come away believing that he truly does not not having those feelings and is just a dipshit.
One reason why it's hard to consider that in Jaylen's case is that, for reasons I've noted upthread, I think it's at least possible that JB has some measure of bad feelings for Jews within him. I don't pretend to know; it's only a sense from how he conducted himself with regard to Kanye and some of his somewhat sloppy comments around Kyrie. A sense from afar, to be sure.
And I don't believe that about LeBron, as much as I find him to be generally distasteful. Or Adam Silver, for that matter.
I could be wrong about all of them. Silver could be as self-hating as a Jew gets for all I know. Anyway, I digress. Again.
He’s allowed to play tonight. Nothing has really changed though.
View: https://mobile.twitter.com/NYPost_Lewis/status/1594359944995823618
View: https://mobile.twitter.com/NYPost_Lewis/status/1594359944995823618
so, "banned for at least 5 games and until he does this list of quests", in the end, actually meant "banned for exactly 5 games regardless of what the hell else he does as long as he doesn't make it worse"?
It also means…..”if we don’t activate him we’ve got a battle on our hands with the players Union without a legal position to stand on.”
While Kyrie may or may not be antisemitic his narcissism is unquestionable. Sounds like he was heavily coached on the apology but couldn’t stay on message throughout the interview because his narcissism precludes true remorse. Narcissists have a very fragile self-image that they protect through constant self-promotion and a refusal to accept fault. Asking Kyrie to sincerely apologize is like asking me to dunk a basketball. He’s just not capable..
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View: https://twitter.com/Krisplashed/status/1594447319721803776
Good stuff, Joe Tsai. This is officially your mess now, bud.
Good stuff, Joe Tsai. This is officially your mess now, bud.
Fuck..Jaylen’s worst reaction yet. I mean, is Jaylen a black Israelite? If not why the fuck is he responding in this way?
The Celtics need to be talking to him -and all their players- about not pulling this team into this garbage. I know a lot of contracts have provisions that restrict players from dangerous sports, I think it’s time for teams to consider “no Twitter” provisions.
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People really need to stop being shocked that Jaylen is quietly just as much of a conspiracy theorist as Kyrie, we've know this for quite a while.
I’m not surprised, but at least before this there was a level of plausible deniability based on his involvement with the union. To me that’s out the window now.
Is it me or has this NBA season just been a constant string of scandals and bad headlines? Udoka, Josh Primo, Kyrie. Now Black Hebrew Israelites having a sing a long before a game.
Fucking hate social media and the burgeoning misinformation age.
In a different era around different influences- Jaylen might have been the type of intelligent, AA leader that we once had with Russell or Kareem.
Sadly, he’s a member of this age, where conspiracy inspired internet memes dominate public discussion and legitimate debate feels old-fashioned. You expect morons like Kanye or Kyrie to fall for this shit, but increasingly it’s everywhere. Just had an intelligent, educated friend tell me yesterday that he’s not vaccinated because vaccines are “neither safe or effective”.
Maybe... but the counter is there were probably just as many conspiracy theorists in the past, you just never knew because people didn't share their every stray thought, or give anyone but their friends access to their lives. I mean plenty of really smart people were anti-Semites, or believed in Ubermensch and other nonsense fake science in the 1930s, or any number of other things. People, even smart people are gullible, and reject evidence.
It’s not you. Throw in Miles Bridges, Robert Sarver, and the Miami Heat arena naming rights for good measure. Epic times.
I disagree. Communication tools increase the spread of ideas. Just as the printing press allowed the great minds of the world to communicate, and this facilitated the spread of the great ideas, the internet has allowed the small minds of the world to connect and this has spread utter nonsense.
Social media is like the printing press for morons.
Meh, both inventions spread great and small ideas, and they bring reason to places where there was only conspiracy as much as they bring conspiracy to new places. I mean, one of the first things the printing press spread was documents to help hunt witches so.....
While I agree that social media has spread some amount of knowledge to areas where the official media is propaganda (like Russia), it’s done the reverse in societies with a well established free press.
Books are disproportionately read by the educated, and the printing industry has editorial standards that disproportionately empower smart people pushing well-considered ideas. In past eras people read newspapers on their subway rides to work - today on that same subway ride they learn that the “true Israelites” were black people and that this “history” was suppressed by “evil zionists”. And I’m not saying this garbage wasn’t available in the pre-social media age, because it most certainly was, but it took work to find it, and most people didn’t have the time or inclination to bother. After all, these are lazy ideas that are most attractive to the lazy minded, and in past eras the “reading interests” of such people rarely strayed beyond the sports page headlines of the Boston Herald. Now you get alerted on your Twitter feed about your favorite basketball players favorite “documentary” and soon enough a bored, incurious sports fan starts to get excited about stupid nonsense that he would have otherwise never considered. I mean, Jesus, even Kanye admits that he’s never read a book. How could a guy like that get excited by “big ideas” unless they were broken down into 15 second TikTok memes or 280 character Twitter posts?
When you’re looking at a response by a bunch of dudes in uniform for their favorite antisemite, energy isn’t a plus.
You still wondering why I dinged Jaylen? When people show you who they are, believe them.
None of this surprises me too much from Jaylen, though I agree this is the worst reaction of his yet.
There was some plausible deniability with most of his previous tweets/interviews. If you squinted enough, looked at the union angle, gave him the benefit of the doubt, you could come up with a reason they weren't that bad. This one is just gross.
Wyc might not be far from giving Jaylen a to-do list to get back on the court. It's that bad.
There was some plausible deniability with most of his previous tweets/interviews. If you squinted enough, looked at the union angle, gave him the benefit of the doubt, you could come up with a reason they weren't that bad. This one is just gross.
Wyc might not be far from giving Jaylen a to-do list to get back on the court. It's that bad.
Yep, it’s very hard to ignore that Jaylen really, really, really likes to support anti-Semites. At a certain point it’s not worth the effort to determine if he is one as well, or not. Judge him by who he supports.
Summer of 2020 I was a huge JB fan. Can’t say I am at all now.
People were always just as dumb, there was just some degree of editorial discretion that that existed with previous (also bad) forms of media. The easiest answer to this problem is that Jaylen is a moron who thinks he is smart, just like Kyrie. He is not a "thought leader" in his community or whatever people projected on him because he went to UC Berkeley.
It's a disappointment, but it isn't surprising. Lots of young men subscribe to this kind of moronic, tribalist belief in many different directions. The growing education gap between young men and young women makes me believe this is likely to continue in the future. We should expect moronic takes from male athletes to become even more prominent as time goes on.
Is anyone else surprised by the organization of the Hebrew Israelites? I thought these guys just yelled at people haphazardly.
You don’t survive for 6,000 years as a people without having your shit together.
He really, really likes to support Black people. I would guess that for him that means not worrying too much about what prejudices they may have when it's about groups he thinks are above Black people in the social pecking order.
See, also, minorities dunking on white women online: they're less privileged than white men, but that doesn't seem to matter too much to a lot of people who are less privileged than they are.
Or, say, a lot of people supporting OJ and celebrating his acquittal.
It all sucks. Hard.
I think this is right on. I don’t think it’s so much Jewish people as it is supporting Black people literally no matter what.
it’s all disappointing
Poor choice of words? Or?
View: https://twitter.com/timbontemps/status/1594520023141343232?s=46&t=wt4Ld9O6bjYn2LPollZYCg
View: https://twitter.com/timbontemps/status/1594520023141343232?s=46&t=wt4Ld9O6bjYn2LPollZYCg
Jaylen is claiming it was about Omega Psi Phi, a Black fraternity who was also in the picture. I really want to believe him. So much.
View: https://twitter.com/FCHWPO/status/1594514788599881728
View: https://twitter.com/FCHWPO/status/1594522019063799809
View: https://twitter.com/FCHWPO/status/1594514788599881728
View: https://twitter.com/FCHWPO/status/1594522019063799809
I think he’s definitely pro his friends Kanye and kyrie, and probably has a pretty big blind spot on antisemitism. But I’m back off the ledge. I think it was a true fuck up, but probably had a bunch of confirmation bias thrown in.
Hes back towards JD Martinez for now. Or maybe Kevin McHale after he showed up at a trump rally.
Still, I’m disappointed. I thought he might be a special person not just a special player.
Hes back towards JD Martinez for now. Or maybe Kevin McHale after he showed up at a trump rally.
Still, I’m disappointed. I thought he might be a special person not just a special player.
All of this could be avoided if these guys just stopped tweeting. What exactly is gained from all the tweeting? These guys have too much to lose and I think most of the thoughts are not well thought out, one way or the other. If the PA wants to advise its players on anything, it should be to get off Twitter.