On the 1 year anniversary of his grandfather’s passing, Kyrie Irving decided to play in the home opener for his new team, the Brooklyn Nets. He dropped a 50 clip, electrifying the crowd with his savvy east-coast style, though he missed the last second, game winning shot. A long, heartfelt, postgame embrace from his father after the loss put some things in perspective for fans everywhere:
1) Before the Nets moved to Brooklyn, they were the storied New Jersey franchise that Kyrie grew up watching; so to play for the team is surreal.
2) Kyrie was playing with a heavy heart, honoring his late grandfather by playing.
last year Irving was traded to the Boston Celtics after spending his first 6 years with Cleveland. After hopes he’d be the catalyst to the resurgent eastern conference frontrunner, Kyrie decided not to remain with the team after talks of him criticizing team culture coupled with a disappointing loss to the Milwaukee Bucks in the second round of the NBA playoffs.
Less than a week after Kyrie’s dazzling performance in the Brooklyn opener, where he explodes onto the hometown scene, long time ESPN correspondent Jackie MacMullan writes a salty article that came out of the blue, scrutinizing Irving’s character. She ostracized Kyrie as temperamental and said his “infamous mood swings” are “the unspoken concern that makes Nets officials queasy”. She went on to say, “When Irving lapses into these funks, he often shuts down, unwilling to communicate with the coaching staff, front office and, sometimes, even his teammates.” Further research revealed that MacMullan was a former Boston Globe writer and her being deelpy entrenched in Celtic culture, offers reason for the shots fired.
That same night, a NYC sports writer quoted Irving after the game as he opened up: “I just had to make a choice,” he said. “Just coming into the locker room, my teammates were well aware of it, most people were. I just had to make a choice just to be happy out there. My grandfather would only want it that way for me. He was my biggest fan… He was definitely in there tonight. I felt him and I know he’s going to be with me on this whole entire journey this season.”
Kyrie is vulnerable, forthcoming, highly intuitive and expressive, in an arena dominated by testosterone-driven competitiveness. It’s beautiful to see Irving exchanging an emotional hug with his father and embracing his freedom to emote as a human being, when black men are portrayed as hyper-masculine and criticized to a point where almost every behavior is considered toxic.
The overpolicing of black male emotionality and white people’s sense of entitlement to crucify what they ultimately don’t understand is triggering in Macmullan’s article. Her article’s title, “For the Culture: KD, Kyrie and what comes next for the Nets”, feels like click bait, yet her reputation as a reporter has resulted in a snowballing black eye on the career of one of the NBA’s most promising rising superstars. Irving is described by most basketball purists as cerebral, mercurial and “dialed in”, beyond measure. His new teammate KD, compared him to an artist and said, “He has his way of doing things. I respect who he is and what he does. He has all the intangibles you want in a teammate”. Black men understanding other black men and granting each other the space to exist beyond white comfort culture.
The Instagram profile @Blackmalementalhealth, speaks to how many men struggle with grief management, self evaluating learned behaviors that may be toxic and managing emotions in a society that has blackballed (pun intended) emotionality for heterosexual black men.
“I didn’t take the necessary steps to get counseling or get therapy to deal with somebody that close to me dying. I’ve never dealt with anything like that.” Irving shared.”
Kyrie is an ambassador for a nonprofit called The Shared Grief Project, an organization that shares the stories of individuals who have experienced a major loss at an early age and have gone on to live healthy, happy and successful lives. On their site he speaks to losing his mother at the age of four, and how living with grief has been a continued challenge for him throughout his upbringing. His father and sister are his source of strength and most important support system.
Our traumatic experiences literally shape our outlook on how we go through life. We begin to see life through the lens of our deepest, most significant, life-altering moments. We disperse remnants of our darkness in subtle waysthat can attract people to us or sometimes be off-putting. Irving is embracing the work that I call it the “dirty work” and black men who are doing the inner work is the new sexy.He continues to take the most challenging step, over and over again, which is showing up! He steps into his greatness as his complete self, unsure, moody at times, cerebral, vulnerable and committed to his own personal growth in spite of criticisms.
Throughout the league, chatter of Kyrie being difficult to play with, is being aggressively thwarted by Nets front office. Nets coach Kenny Atkinson and other sources have denied all claims that Kyrie has been difficult in any way. The front office, with Jay Z in the undertow, is doing a terrific job establishing the culture of the Nets organization, as one that is collaborative and allows for the players to infuse their own professional regimen within the team’s. Irving was choked up as he introduced his team to the Brooklyn fans on opening day. He told the crowd, “WOW! Its just hitting me”, as he took a brief pause to revel in the moment, before making history with one of the best performances ever for a player’s debut with a new team.
Irving’s true challenge will be accepting his role as a leader on a team that lacked a real “go-to” guy. “I understand how special I am with the basketball in my hands and being at the top tier of scoring, and I think that I am capable of doing so. I don’t mind showing it for the rest of the season. It’s not even so much an individual goal, it’s something I’m going to be asked to do for my team this year.” This level of agency and self awareness is hard for most people to understand who have never been tasked to lead. Leaders often struggle with finding that sweet spot of asserting themselves and empowering others to be their best selves. A delicate balancing act that only few do well. He’s maturing before our eyes, how he’s handling his role that began in the shadows of megastar Lebron James, now anchoring himself as a franchise centerpiece. Irving seems to be getting more comfortable with his particular leadership style, especially after admitting to struggling to find his authentic voice in Boston.
“That’s the biggest thing. It’s just not trying to overemphasize what leadership means all the time and overexplain it, in terms of, ‘This is me as a leader.’ Because truth be told, there is not just one leader in the locker room” said Irving in response to critics.
It’s understandable how MacMullan could interpret hisdemeanor as one that is “unwilling to communicate”, without factoring in the healing, emotional grace period or diversity in leadership style, regarding Kyrie’s plight. Maybe it’s the introvert in me that relates to being tasked with leadership roles that require you to be in the forefront, even if you don’t prefer it.
As players become more business savvy and DEI initiatives continue to circumvent patriarchal, white power dynamics in sports and across sectors, players are leveraging more power in these mostly white-owned organizations. Lebron James’ new move to Los Angeles has galvanized legislators to sign a bill into law that allows college athletes to be paid for their likeness, after decades of policies that blocked student athletes from earning any income, all while generating billions for college sports. The new Rich Paul rule changed policies around removing previous educational qualifications required to represent professional athletes as agents. Players aren’t performing in black face when entering the board room to discuss contracts and the shift in power dynamics are difficult for some. Jay-Z’s influence in the Nets organization and the intergrating of Roc Nation as a sports management agency is encouraging players to think more strategically about their branding. When Kyrie talks about his struggles around culture in Boston, it’s safe to assume he needed more of what he has now, the intangibles from people and an organization that simply feels more aligned with his core values.
MacMullan’s article is quickly being disregarded. as lacking credibility with league sources, while reminding us of eerily similar accusatory claims of black men deemed threatening by salty white women.
This Emmitt Till-like wolf cry has shown itself in the more current, provocative calling of police on people of color, where white people utilize the volatile nature of racist policing practices to justify their cultural misunderstandings. It shows itself in the school-to-prison pipeline, where white female teachers discipline boys of color at disproportionately higher rates than their white peers for similar disruptions. It’s more due to a lack of cultural competency and identity responsiveness, where white people need to be cognizant of their opinions on black life and just how skewed their perspectives may be, based on unacknowledged implicit biases.
While masculinity continues to be dissected, lets not forget to allow black men the grace to express themselves beyond what has been unintimidating for white people. Whether it be loud and aggressive or introverted and uncompromising. These new ideas of masculinity and how it is exercised, doesn’t have to be feminized to be considered radical. Black men finding the courage and emotional intelligence to manage their traumas unapologetically, is revolutionary in itself. Nonetheless, Kyrie Irving’s plight is a microcosm of the millions of black men resiliently, out there showing up as their full selves, while managing their traumas amidst white expectancies, all while being crucified for it. Black men have to manage the backlash of being misunderstood, misrepresented and left for judgement due to white women just — not getting it. Keep going Kyrie.
