After vowing to avoid media this season, Nets star Kyrie Irving met with reporters on Monday
Kyrie Irving’s media boycott, it seems, is already over.
The Brooklyn Nets star — who issued several statements and went on Instagram Live in lieu of meeting with reporters earlier this month, which resulted in the league fining him and the team $25,000 — finally met with the media on Monday morning.
The purpose to his “boycott,” apparently, was because he wanted to focus only on the game.
“The focus is on what’s going on in here,” Irving said, via ESPN. “And I wanted to make sure that was clear, no distractions, nothing about dispelling anything, nothing about going back and forth.”
Kyrie Irving fined, called media ‘pawns’
Irving issued a statement earlier this month instead of speaking with reporters, so that he can “ensure that my message is conveyed properly.” His plan, apparently, was to avoid the media all season.
Yet because NBA players are required to make themselves available to the media, the league fined him $25,000 last week.
Even after the fine, however, Irving doubled down and called the media “pawns.”
Naturally, his decision drew pretty harsh criticism — even from Portland star Damian Lillard, who actually called him out on Instagram Live.
Irving said on Monday that his “pawns” comment or decision to avoid the media wasn’t directed at any specific journalist, but rather the media in general — which isn’t that surprising given his previous issues. He was slammed for publicly vowing to sign an extension with the Celtics in 2018, which he never did, and then had to apologize for a flat-earth theory he started spreading in 2017 and 2018.
“It’s really just about how I felt about the mistreatment of certain artists when we get to a certain platform of when we make decisions within our lives to have full control and ownership … We want to perform in a secure and protected space,” he said, via ESPN.
Though Irving agreed to speak with reporters on Monday, the regular season hasn’t even started. Whether that trend continues through the season — and his boycott stays a thing of the past — remains to be seen.
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