Jaylen Brown Is At Odds With Joe Tsai
Jaylen Brown is standing up for his former teammate again.
The Celtics star has criticized Brooklyn Nets owner Joe Tsai for his handling of the Kyrie Irving suspension. As vice president of the NBPA, Brown has been very vocal about the semantics regarding Irving and what he, and the association, sees as wrong.
“(Tsai’s) response was alarming to me,” Brown said postgame Monday. “He didn’t say that the organization was working together to get Kyrie (Irving) back on the floor. He said that (Kyrie) had more work to do. And our society has more work to do, including Joe Tsai. It’s 2022. It takes 10 minutes of time to see who these business owners, corporations, etc., who they’re associated with and who they’re doing business with, who they’re affiliated with.
“I’m vice president of the union and it’s part of my job to protect our players legally. And to see (co-owner founder and chairman of Nike) Phil Knight first come out and condemn Kyrie, and also see Joe Tsai say he has more work to do, I think it’s time for a large conversation.”
Quote via CLNS Media/YouTube
Does Brown have a point here?
Irving did issue a public apology on social media for his promotion of the antisemitic film. However, that apology came after a soap opera of a press conference a few weeks ago where he did not explicitly say he stands against antisemitism.
It’s a very difficult issue to discuss. For starters, antisemitism is terrible. I think anyone who stands for it has some serious issues. The faster we can call out and eliminate hate speech, the better. What Irving did was wrong, but now comes the tough part.
What is everyone’s end game here?
Obviously, I’m sure Irving just wants to play. We’ve seen people like Kevin Durant and LeBron James come out and advocate for his return to the Nets. However, Tsai is not satisfied. Does he want Irving back? Or would he rather trade or even cut him? It’s hard to find where to draw the line.
In the weeks since Irving’s tirade, we’ve seen a lot of different forms of pushback on the 30-year-old. Brown is also perfectly within his right to say what he said as well. Especially when you consider that both Tsai and NBA commissioner Adam Silver have publicly said they don’t believe Irving holds antisemitic beliefs.
Reading Between The Lines
Despite serving the minimum five games imposed by his suspension, there is still no sign of when Irving will return. It shouldn’t come as a surprise that Tsai would want Kyrie to complete the additional assignments asked of him. Right now, all we can do is wait and see. It will be quite fascinating to see who wins the blame game as the days and weeks go on.
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