“This is bigger than basketball,” Brooklyn Nets owner Joe Tsai tweeted after condemning Kyrie Irving’s spreading of an antisemitic documentary. The following night, Irving was still in uniform and scored 35 points in a loss to the Indiana Pacers. Irving’s tweet may have been bigger than basketball, but that didn’t appear to stop him from playing basketball.
In the days since, Irving has been offered opportunity after opportunity to flatly apologize for spreading hate speech. On each occasion, he has offered all kinds of word vomits to do anything but. When asked directly whether he was antisemitic in a yes or no question, he didn’t say no.