Kyrie Irving made global headlines during the NBA’s All-Star Weekend when he made comments about his beliefs that the world is flat, rather than round.
The world went crazy, questioning Irving’s intelligence as a whole in the midst of the greatest weekend showcase in the basketball community.
Irving recently joined Channing Frye and Richard Jefferson on their podcast, ‘Road Trippin’ with RJ and Channing‘, and spoke about the can of worms he opened.
“I found it somewhat hilarious just by the reaction it got,” Irving told Allie Clifton. “That right there, before we went into All-Star weekend, we talked about this. Because we were like, “this is gonna be crazy, going into All-Star weekend, flat Earth, round Earth conversation. Aliens. No conspiracy theories”. So as I’m at All-Star weekend, I’m starting to see different news channels, different people pick it up. And it almost felt like I was standing on top of a pendulum and I was like swinging back and forth and then it gave everyone a chance to just look at me and then, if they didn’t agree with me, kind of like throw rocks at me. Just like, ‘no, he can’t believe this.”
“And then you got all these science experts, guys that have been studying the space, the earth, everything for so many years,” Irving continued. “And I’m sitting back and I’m like, OK, the fact that, you know, that this is opening up a conversation, I’m happy with that. The fact that it became a conversation starter and honestly people were asking me questions and they were looking at me like I didn’t have a brain on, or my parents didn’t raise me the right way, or something like that, there’s something definitely wrong with this kid — that’s when I started to kind of, I took a step back and I was like OK, this is more than just what I just said. This right here opened up a whole bunch of things. A whole bunch of information as well.”
“It’s OK to think something that, I guess, the majority wouldn’t think,” Irving said. “I just didn’t like the fact that us being able to celebrate our individuality and things that we ultimately hold on to, and just because we don’t believe what the world thinks or what the majority thinks, then why punish that? That’s the only thing I felt like that got misconstrued is just that it’s OK to believe one thing. It’s OK to have your own thoughts and be able to function and be able to formulate your own thoughts and opinions and still be able to convey them to other people.”
Irving stood by his comments, stating he truly believes that the world has a flat surface. Other NBA stars, including Draymond Green, jumped on board Irving’s comments and completely agreed with him.
Irving’s podcast message was a big one, going out and encouraging others to stand by their viewpoints, that it’s OK to have an opinion of your own.