After nearly a week of vacillating, the Nets decided to suspend Kyrie Irving last Thursday for at least five games for promoting an antisemitic film on social media and refusing to apologize. Brooklyn set six guidelines Irving must meet before rejoining the club, including meeting with Jewish leaders.
Jaylen Brown thinks the Nets have gone too far.
In an interview with the Globe's Gary Washburn, Brown, who's vice president of the NBA Players' Association, said he thinks those conditions are too stringent. "I don't believe Kyrie Irving is antisemitic," said Brown. "I don't think people in our governing bodies think he's antisemitic. He made a mistake. We understand from an outside perspective how important sensitivity is to not condone hate speech and not condone anything of that nature. It's sensitivity to the dialect around that. We don't want to stand up for somebody in order to not condemn hate speech, but I don't believe Kyrie Irving is antisemitic. And hopefully the NBA feels the same way."
Irving, it's worth noting, is vice president of the NBPA Executive Committee.
On Monday, various other members of the NBPA expressed support for Irving, including Malcolm Brogdon, who said Irving is a "good person."
Brown said he thinks there's too much ambiguity when it comes to the league's policy via social media and which postings should constitute disciplinary action.
"There is an interesting distinction between what somebody says verbally and what somebody posts as a link on a platform with no description behind it," said Brown. "Some people will argue there's no difference and some people will argue there is a difference. There's no language in our CBA. There's no rules against it. This is uncharted territory for everybody, and everybody is trying to figure out the difference between the two."
That was Irving's argument: he wasn't endorsing the antisemitic views expressed in "Hebrews to Negroes: Wake Up Black America." The mercurial point guard said he was just sharing material with his 4.6 million Twitter followers.
"Can you please stop calling it a promotion? What am I promoting?," said Irving indignity at a press conference last week.
Last Thursday night, Irving issued a long apology on Instagram, but not before refusing to say outright whether the Holocaust happened and echoing more antisemitic tropes.
Irving is meeting with NBA commissioner Adam Silver Tuesday.
"He made a mistake. He posted something," said Brown. "There was no distinction. Maybe we can move forward, but the terms in which he has to fulfill to return, I think not just speaking for me, speaking as a vice president from a lot of our players, we didn't agree with the terms that was required for him to come back."
Last month, Brown announced he was ending his partnership with Kanye West's Donda Sports after the rapper posted explicitly antisemitic material, though it took him days to do so.
