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My thoughts on Kyrie Irving and the media, because apparently that's what we're doing today:
This situation has brought out the worst of both sides in the player-media relationship, which can be tenuous enough as it is. I resent a lot of what my industry has become, so I get the perception of the media that we're all hungry for hot takes and click bait to get famous
With that being said, journalists are like every other industry: There are good ones, who try to produce quality, fair content and report the truth, and there are bad ones, who take shortcuts, don't know how to ask questions and fracture that trust with players and readers alike
I understand Kyrie's misgivings with the media as an entity. The No. 1 NBA reporter unfairly called him a "disruptor" for voicing perfectly valid concerns about returning to play in a pandemic and what the league would do to help on the social justice front. That sucked.
However, this isn't the first time Kyrie has vilified the media, and in the past, it's usually been because HE said something ridiculous or controversial. If you say something that's totally off the wall, it's quite literally our job to write about it.
I think Kyrie really does care about important causes like social justice, and I applaud him for that. I also think his fake wokeness is incredibly tiresome, especially for those who cover him day in and day out.
So when you constantly treat reporters like crap, tell them you think the earth is flat and then try to pretend like there was some deeper meaning to it that the media didn't get, and try to make THEM out to be the bad guys, you just don't get as much leeway in anyone's book.
That doesn't excuse him being labeled as a "disruptor" and made out to be a villain this summer by any means. But is anyone surprised people have just gotten fed up with the consistently combative way he delivers his messages?
Again, I get the trust being fractured after what happened this summer, but the media is not some all-encompassing entity. Any by not speaking to any media outlets, he's leaving his teammates, the Nets PR team, the reporters, the fans AND his message out to dry.
Instead of releasing these cryptic messages and calling reporters who are trying to do their jobs "pawns," why not use your platform to spread the social justice issues that are so important to you?
Using the media to your advantage is a skill a lot of guys don't have, and I get that. It shouldn't be his job to win over the entire room just to accurately get his message across.
But based on the way Kyrie conveys his messages in these whack statements, and based on the bizarre shit he's said in the past, I don't think *he* even knows what message he's trying to get across, which compounds the problem when the media's job is to spread that message.
As is usually the case with stuff like this, there are faults on both sides. But I am really, really sick of him deflecting his poor delivery onto reporters to make them out to be the bad guys when he said or did something strange.
