Brooklyn Nets guard Kyrie Irving recently stirred the pot with a statement made on new teammate Kevin Durant ahead of their partnership come the 2021 NBA season.

“One thing I've always been comfortable with, I felt like I was the best option on every team I played for down the stretch,” Irving said on Durant's new podcast, “The Etcs,” per ESPN. “This is the first time in my career I've looked down and be like, ‘That motherf—er can make that shot too.'

The quote appeared to be a shot at Irving's former Cleveland Cavaliers teammate in Lebron James who was the leader of the Cavs unit from 2014 to 2018. Another former teammate of his in Iman Shumpert sounded off on the comments made by Irving and the beef between Irving and James via Complex Sports:

During the 2016 NBA Finals, playing alongside James, Kyrie Irving scored the go-ahead basket for the Cavaliers in Game 7 against the Golden State Warriors. His cold-blooded three-pointer with 53 seconds remaining put the Cavs up 92-89 to help the franchise win its first-ever championship.

However, the four-time NBA MVP in James was the one who carried the team on his back by putting up triple-double performances in almost every game in each of the four Finals series that the team has previously gone through.

For Shumpert, the comments made by Irving were wrongly taken by people who continuously thinks that his two former teammates are taking shots at each other. In his opinion, it was more than that and Irving just made a personal career decision that was best for him when he took a different path than James.

On the court, the newly-formed tandem of Irving and Durant will aim to make noise in the Eastern Conference and potentially challenge James' Lakers side in who recently won the 2020 NBA championship.