Kyrie Irving was left off the roster for every Nets home game this year, up until recently, due to his refusal to receive the Covid vaccine. He was also left off the NBA’s 75th-anniversary team, and he seems to think it could be for the same reason.
Reporters asked Irving about being snubbed from the NBA 75 team Wednesday night.
“I think I’ll leave it to the conspiracy theorists,” Irving told the media. “I think I was on the list, but I guess I’m not, so hey, like I said, maybe I’ll just wait 10 years, 20 years from now, hopefully with a few championships under my belt and talking with you guys on the court raising a few championship banners here in [Brooklyn]. That’s what it’s all about.”
The New York Post reports that observers pointed out videos of Irving tagged “NBA 75.” A discovery that those observers, and Irving, believe that he was initially selected for the team and then taken off.
Brooklyn Nets guard Kyrie Irving (Sarah Stier/Getty Images)
“It’s not necessarily about proving to somebody why I deserve to be on the list,” Irving explained. “I know that I have a lot more work to do in this league, and I just want to leave it there so just like my game speaks for itself. I love being skilled, but by the time I leave and retire, I want to be known as a winner. A championship winner. Wanna have a few of those things and do it with a great group of guys and a great organization that believes in me, and the rest of it can be written by itself.”
Still, Irving doesn’t seem to be letting the snub get to him.
“If I’m up there with some of those guys, I don’t take it for granted,” he said. “It was a lot of lonely nights in the gym, a lot of sacrifices of time, being away from my family, being away from friends, not having an ideal childhood that everybody else has had, so to say, being a college dropout at Duke and just not being able to live what they say is a normal life: Get a 9-5 and pour into your passion.
“So this right here is a special game and it’s rewarded a lot of people. So if I can etch my name and be up there with some of the greats, I feel like I’m leaving the legacy I want to leave. It’s just a lot of hard work that goes into it, so I’m grateful for it.”