Kyrie Irving, superstar point guard of the defending champion Cleveland Cavaliers, recently made a statement that is catching a lot of media attention.
Yesterday, as players from across the NBA descended on New Orleans, Louisiana, for this year’s All-Star festivities, Irving, in a media availability press conference, made the claim that the Earth is flat.
Prior to today’s All-Star practice session, Joe Vardon of Cleveland.com asked Irving if he really believed that the Earth is flat.
“With the flat Earth thing, is that something you truly believe?,” Vardon asked Irving.
“Does it matter?,” Irving replied with a straight face. “Does it matter to you that I think the Earth is flat or if I think the Earth is round?”
Vardon and Irving continued to go back and forth on the topic. The full interview can be seen in the two videos below.
Now, it may seem like a bold statement, but “Uncle Drew,” as Irving is affectionately known, is not the first to think that the Earth is flat — if he indeed believes it — which it seems he doesn’t. In fact, according to Wikipedia, the first organized society of flat Earth believers, which reportedly had 3,500 members at its peak, was founded in 1956.
Scientifically speaking, astronomers have known that planetary bodies form into spherical shapes since the days of Pythagoras (500 B.C.). And somewhere around 350 B.C., Aristotle, the great philosopher, also deemed the Earth round. Since then, with the invention of the telescope and space travel, man has been able to reveal some of the secrets of our universe.
Whether Irving actually believes that the Earth is flat or not isn’t really the point he was trying to prove. It seems the crafty ball-handler was only trying to point out that this story is receiving major coverage, while other, more important world issues, are not.
I don’t know if you could even call it news,” Irving said in closing. “There’s so many real things going on. Like things that are going on that change the shape and the way of our lives. I think sometimes it get skewed because of who we are and the basketball world.”
“I know the science. I know everything possible. The fact that this can actually be real news, and you know, people actually ask me, ‘Its a social phenomenon, what do you think about it? Are you going to try to protect your image?'”
“It really doesn’t matter. It really doesn’t matter. The fact that its a conversation, I’m glad it got people talking. Kyrie actually thinks the world is flat…”
