With the Celtics mired in a mid-season slump, superstar Kyrie Irving took another opportunity to voice his displeasure with the media scrutiny surrounding his team, which has lost seven of its last 10 games. Irving has made it clear this season that he doesn’t enjoy filling his media obligations – he’s bristled at speculation over his future in Boston and and accused the media of breaking up teams – and on Monday Irving said that NBA players are exploited.
“I didn’t really come into this game to [have] cameras in my face, be famous, be a celebrity. Whatever embodies that. So it’s a little hard for me.
…. Adam Silver was talking the other day about how unhappy NBA players are, especially nowadays because of just the scrutiny, exploitation that we go through of everything being judged, or someone being a very high stature and people are still throwing stones at him.”
On ESPN’s Get Up, NBA veteran Jalen Rose called out Irving’s “weak” response to criticism, and said that being an NBA superstar isn’t nearly as hard as Irving makes it seem.
“You know when scrutiny happens? When you don’t meet expectations. And what I’ve noticed is when people start to get criticized or questioned, you can handle it two ways – with strength, or weakness. And he showed the latter with those comments.
Here’s what I mean. It ain’t that hard. For those that don’t know, these media scrums, they happen like five minutes of your day. This isn’t like the media following you around like the paparazzi, 24/7, 365. You can turn the media off and on. You only have to deal with them when you’re at your locker, before practice or after practice, before the game or after the game. Any other thing that you consume, that’s your choice, whether it’s social media or critics.”
