The New NBA As Told By The Kyrie and KD Tell All
Self-awareness is important. March to the beat of your own drum. If you’ve observed pop culture for even a decade, you’ve seen the power of someone making something “cool” just off being stubbornly authentic. Most are followers, using the warm blanket of social acceptance to police things perceived to be kosher. This isn’t about their own actual issues with things that they can flesh out, but really a magnification of societal norms.
Clearly, as you can tell, that nature is quite the opposite of my modus operandi. I view Kyrie Irving and Kevin Durant as people with similar points of view. While they’ve both received criticism for their penchant to go against the grain, the legacy they’re building in a borough synonymous, today at least LOL, with hipsters and counterculture is something that will permeate and last much longer than their playing careers in Brooklyn.
A bit of a tangent there but part of this self-awareness is the understanding that I like hours-long media. A lot of you, especially in 2021, are increasingly here for short snippets. So I’d like to provide you a quick breakdown of a SUPER LONG podcast of author Matt Sullivan’s findings being around Kyrie, KD, and their beginnings with the Brooklyn Nets. Hat tip to Dan Le Batard and the gang, love what y’all are doing!
Matt Sullivan, formerly an editor with the likes of The New York Times, Esquire, and Bleacher Report, got super cozy with the Brooklyn Nets and their stars Kyrie Irving and Kevin Durant. His tell-all, Can’t Knock The Hustle: Inside the Season of Protest, Pandemic, and Progress with the Brooklyn Nets' Superstars of Tomorrow, delves into a new era of player empowerment, two superstars coming into their own while reshaping a franchise that has long played second-fiddle in the New York City market and the drama that was the 2020 NBA playoff bubble between COVID and George Floyd protests.
Dan Le Batard had Matt on to give as brief of an overview as possible about the book and takeaways Sullivan had in his two-plus years being around the players and team. And I’m here to shorten that even more.
This is a major theme throughout the book it sounds like. Between the roles Kyrie and KD played in the firing of Kenny Atkinson, Kyrie giving players the boot who didn’t jive with his politics, and their personal rendezvous’ being on the company card; this is really the new NBA especially for teams looking to join superstars, accustomed to having the special privileges that come with All-Star appearances, All-NBA teams and playoff success.
Matt doesn’t accost the Nets for this as much as he signals that the key to making this work is to let these players drive the ship and step in only when absolutely necessary.
I told you before that Kyrie was misunderstood, but Matt’s big takeaway is that Kyrie is a really good dude that’s been finding himself. One such nugget was his meeting with Bill Russell while a member of the Celtics and Boston’s background on race playing a role in his decision to backtrack on his commitment to re-sign long-term.
As Kyrie himself stated, the passing of his grandfather was a pivotal moment in his life that also coincided with a visit to the land of his late mother’s tribe. Besides his own individualism, of course, the LeBron method of player empowerment mixed with Kobe’s calling a spade, a spade, has really morphed into the Kyrie we see today.
Ultimately, Ky and KD are simply too talented and powerful to be controlled in ways we’ve seen athletes be muzzled before. And as we saw with how people came back to give Kyrie his flowers on playing while the George Floyd protests were happening, Kyrie is actually more right on these things than he is wrong. Again, back to marching to the beat of your own drum.
THE NBA'S PLAYING IT SAFE TIP-TOE
There was a bit in here of Kyrie and KD’s decision to quietly fade the anthem and also mention of Mark Cuban’s decree that the NBA tried to ride out before the backlash ensued. This is a conversation I like to have about the NBA because while they get this label of being liberal and “woke”, they aren’t inherently much different than the NFL.
The NBA seemingly tries to appease all parties involved but with some of these instances - especially when tensions are rising in the wake of global George Floyd protests - having a foot on each side of the line doesn’t work. This is what truly makes the player empowerment movement, and particularly Kyrie and KD’s brand of it, so interesting.
Unlike the NFL which can play a numbers game and has the reality of the finite nature of a player’s career anyway due to its brutal physicality; the NBA rests on the meteoric rise that comes with a player like LeBron James who has had an 18-year reign as the face of basketball. There are many narratives and storylines on the court, but this is a continuing WWE-like arc that I’m very much enjoying watching unfold.
This was a great watch if you want to sit down for the entire 50-plus minute show. While it certainly felt like Matt was out here snitching, this level of access shines a light - I think a positive one - on the prisoners leading the asylum. All too often we are guilty of falling in line with this hierarchal system of the coach, front office, and owner knowing what’s best and following their lead.
Yet the path that Kyrie and KD are setting - not just for the Nets but for the league as a whole - speaks directly to what we, as fans, say we want to see: knowledgeable, well-meaning athletes using their platforms to effect change. I also couldn’t help but feel this was the proverbial child of Colin Kaepernick’s efforts along with the very strategic methodology that LeBron James has used throughout his career.
We often joke about LeBron from time to time but he’s done an excellent job of playing the game while advancing causes near and dear to the community he comes from and the people he represents. Definitely pick up this book if you’re interested in hearing more but this is certainly a storyline to pay attention to if you’re a fan of the NBA.
