After the Los Angeles Lakers lost to the Utah Jazz on Friday. the postgame media session was focused on LeBron James. Not his lingering (non-COVID) virus and foot soreness, nor his 17 points, 10 rebounds, and eight assists on 7-of-19 shooting, nor the uncharacteristically subpar effort by his team's defense, which Anthony Davis and Darvin Ham addressed.
Instead, for the first time, an active, star NBA player who doesn't play for the Brooklyn Nets — the most important NBA player, in fact — addressed Kyrie Irving's antisemitic messages and the ongoing fallout. Here was LeBron James' full exchange with ESPN's Dave McMenamin:
McMenamin: “We haven't heard much from players around the league about Kyrie Irving's social media posts and subsequent comments. Why do you think that is?”
LeBron: “I can tell you this, it's simple: Me personally, I don't condone any hate to any kind. To any race. To Jewish communities, to Black communities, to Asian communities. You guys know where I stand. And that's part of the reason why I didn't air “The Shop” episode, why we kicked that out of our archives. Because it was hate conversation going on there. And I don't represent that. There's no place in this world for it. Nobody can benefit from that, and I believe what Kyrie did caused some harm to a lot of people. And he has since … he apologized. Because he caused some harm and I think it's unfortunate. But I don't stand on the position to harm people when it comes to your voice or your platform or anything. So, it doesn't matter what color your skin is, how tall you are, what position you're in. If you are promoting or soliciting or saying harmful things to any community that harms people, then I don't respect it. I don't condone it.”
LeBron and Kyrie have an up-and-down, but mostly up, history together. They went to three NBA Finals with the Cleveland Cavaliers and won a championship in 2016. In 2017, Irving, reportedly over being in LeBron's shadow, asked for a trade. Kyrie — retroactively ironically, considering, well… — appeared on “The Shop” two months ago. On a podcast last spring, he recounted his trade demand and blamed the media for ginning up his and LeBron's beef. Last summer, he was hoping to be dealt to the Lakers — a possibility that is reportedly still on the table. Irving was suspended by Nike on Friday.
While condemning Irving's remarks, LeBron expressed his love for his ex-teammate and gratitude that, at the very least, Irving apologized (via Instagram caption, not in spoken words, yet.)
McMenamin: “What could be a resolution for Irving to get past his current suspensions with the Nets and Nike?”
LeBron: “I don't know. Because at the end of the day, Kyrie is his own man. He stands up in front of the media and speaks. He is a man (from) a great family. He's a great — I love the kid … I don't know the direction, the steps that he takes. But he's apologized for what he said and I hope that he understands that what he said was harmful to a lot of people. And we as humans, none of us are perfect, but I hope he understands what he did and the actions that he took are just harmful to people. … That's just common sense.”
More from LeBron on Kyrie: pic.twitter.com/3uPZLKVxcm
— Michael Corvo (@michaelcorvoNBA) November 5, 2022
LeBron was then asked about the importance of voting ahead of Election Day. The NBA has no scheduled games on Tuesday to encourage folks to vote. James pointed out the truly meaningful impact his More Than A Vote initiative had in 2020 and cited the history of voter suppression against Black Americans. (More Than A Vote is dormant and LeBron has not publicly addressed the upcoming elections nor endorsed any candidates this cycle.)
“I think from the Black community — and obviously our league is predominately Black athletes, Black players, Black men — our community, we talk and speak about change a lot. So, in order to have change we have to get out and actually put our mouths and put our hands and put our pens and pencils to the polls. Starting in your community, then it starts in the city, then out to state, and then all the way out the country, we have an opporuntiy to be able to say that you've done your due diligence to try to help create change in your community.
“We've been oppressed for so long. Obviously, I had the More Than A Vote initiative when we was in the bubble. I was very active with that. So many musicians and athletes and leaders was able to come on board with us. But we've been oppressed for so long. They told us we couldn't vote. They told our women — our Black women — they weren't allowed to vote for so many years. But they continue to reprimand us or do things to us in our community to harm us and harm our family. And we sit here and wonder why and what's going on. So, I think it's very important that you get educated about what's going on. Who your local people are that's gonna be making decisions in your community, making decisions that could affect you, could affect your family, could affect your school districts and things of that nature. Cause it's important. I know as Black people sometimes, we don't believe that our vote counts, we don't believe that our vote matters — and I just say Black people cause I just know my people, I can't speak for everybody, I just know how we are — but it does. It does matter. We saw change when we wanted to get someone out of office. So, I hope people take it serious.”
LeBron closed the presser by articulating how and when he uses his social media platform(s) to speak out on certain issues.
“I speak about things that kind of hit home for me, that comes from the heart, comes from my gut. Things that I believe in. Things that I'm passionate about. Or some things that just hit me and I just know that it's just wrong. I definitely have common sense and I know the difference between right and wrong. So, with More Than An Athlete, obviously it's gaining legs that I didn't even think that it was gonna create. I was literally talking about me and my situation and what I had going on with some lady on some station on television. So I was speaking for me, that I'm more than an athlete and what I do and what I talk about and what I represent — not only just on the court, obviously, but off the floor as well. I don't know. It kind of all depends. Everyone's not gonna agree with everything that you talk about … If it feels right, and my people are calling for me to sometimes say something because they need a voice, they need a platform. Then, I'm there for 'em.”
LeBron added that he's “literally muted like 25 to 35 people” on Twitter who said “harmful things” while he's been sitting sick in bed this week.
“I've never done that. It's actually pretty fun…So if you've got something harmful to say, you'll be muted.”
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