Reggie Miller isn’t playing around.
There has been quite a public response to Kyrie Irving tweeting out a link to a movie that featured strong anti-Semitic messaging. Yet there hasn’t been much in the way of condemning Irving’s statements from those around the league. Pretty much crickets. The NBA and the NBAPA released statements condemning antisemitism in any form but did not specify what they were talking about, it was pretty vague. The Brooklyn Nets did the exact same thing.
Other than Nets owner Joe Tsai, though, most have chosen to remain silent for the most part. For a league filled with athletes who have been at the forefront of social justice movements in the country for a few years now, it feels quite disappointing that all of Irving’s colleagues around the league have gone silent. NBA legend Reggie Miller gave voice to that disappointment during TNT’s broadcast of Nets-Bulls last night.
Reggie said the players “dropped the ball” by not speaking out and it is especially disappointing after those same players successfully pushed for Robert Sarver to sell the Phoenix Suns by openly condemning the racist and sexist comments he made.
Here are the comments Reggie Miller made below:
Via New York Post:
“In years past, this league has been great because the players have led the way and they have strong voices,” Miller said. “When Donald Sterling stepped in it, when Robert Sarver just recently stepped in it, our voices in the basketball community and our players were vocally strong in some type of discipline being handed down — or be gone.
“The players have dropped the ball on this case when it’s been one of their own. It’s been crickets,” Miller added. “And it’s disappointing, because this league has been built on the shoulders of the players being advocates. Right is right and wrong is wrong. And if you’re gonna call out owners, and rightfully so, then you’ve got to call out players as well. You can’t go silent in terms of this for Kyrie Irving. I want to hear the players and their strong opinions as well, just as we heard about Robert Sarver and Donald Sterling.”
Reggie Miller is spot-on here and it’s great that he called out the NBA players. Because tweeting Holocaust denial movies to millions of people is no good. It shouldn’t matter that Kyrie Irving is a great player. Just imagine if a lesser known player did this, he certainly would be punished.
It’s a real shame that comments like these from Reggie Miller and the Inside The NBA guys is the only forward-facing defense against Irving the public has seen.
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