“Love peer to peer hoop drama”: Kyrie Irving takes a cheeky dig at Miles Bridges-Austin Rivers beef
NBA All-Star guard Kyrie Irving is an interested spectator in the ongoing beef between fellow players Miles Bridges and Austin Rivers.
The Dallas Mavericks player took to X to give his cheeky take on the matter, adding further fuel to it.
Irving wrote:
“Lol. Gotta love peer to peer hoop drama. @ who you’re talking about next time.”
The whole drama started when Rivers, in one of his recent interviews, said Charlotte Hornets All-Star guard LaMelo Ball should be surrounded by people who can bring the best out of him and not by “troubled youth.”
Feeling referenced to with the term “troubled youth,” Bridges, who sat all of last season after pleading no contest to a felony domestic assault on his former girlfriend, fired back, saying that people like Rivers who do not play with the Hornets have no business talking about the team.
Bridges wrote on Snapchat:
“Y'all hoopers get on these podcast and talk like y'all really like that. Speaking on other teams like y'all know what's going on…”
He went on to take a dig at Rivers, saying:
“Most the people talking the most sh*t don't play at all. We gone see about all that this year on me.”
Rivers, son of champion NBA coach Doc Rivers, played for the Minnesota Timberwolves last season, averaging 4.9 points, 1.6 rebounds and 1.4 assists in 19.5 minutes on the floor.
Kyrie Irving Twitter controversy
Interestingly, while Kyrie Irving took a dig at the Rivers-Bridges beef on Twitter, it was also on the same platform that he made controversial news last year.
Irving, then playing for the Brooklyn Nets, shared a link of the movie Hebrews to Negroes: Wake Up Black America, which many viewed as promoting ideas of antisemitism.
Immediately, many people took him to task for it, including Nets owner Joe Tsai, who expressed his disappointment over Twitter, writing:
“I’m disappointed that Kyrie appears to support a film based on a book full of antisemitic disinformation. I want to sit down and make sure he understands this is hurtful to all of us, and as a man of faith, it is wrong to promote hate based on race, ethnicity or religion.”
Irving eventually apologized for his actions, saying that he is not antisemitic and he meant no harm to any community when he made the post.
Months later, the explosive guard was traded to the Dallas Mavericks, where he recently signed a three-year, $126-million contract extension.