Kyrie Irving Hopped On His Stream And Decided To Air Out All The Dirty Laundry About His Time With The Brooklyn Nets

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A few weeks ago, Kevin Durant joined LeBron and Steve Nash on their podcast, where they covered a plethora of topics. There wasn't really any hot take or viral moment, just three basketball legends talking about the game and their experiences. When the topic of the Nets and Steve Nash coaching came up, KD shared his perspective

Not all that crazy right? As an outsider, that felt like a pretty level-headed description/take about what happened during that time in Nets history.

But this is 2025, so you knew things weren't going to end there

Well friends, last night was the night. Kyrie hopped on his stream last night and decided to tell his side on a wide variety of topics, including this one. It's still depressing as hell that we're about to have an NBA season and go all year without Kyrie, Tatum, Haliburton and Dame on the floor. God does that suck. But the good news is it gives someone like Kyrie plenty of time to stream and say whatever the fuck he wants, and I have to give him credit. He's open and honest. He gives no fucks which I respect. I'm sure NBA teams or his agent don't exactly love the idea of Kyrie hopping on a stream and airing out everyone's dirty laundry, but me? As a fan? Sign me up.

Let's start with Kyrie even going to Brooklyn in the first place. Remember that video during All Star Weekend where he and KD were caught talking about a team with 2 max slots and all that before they both bolted for the Nets? As it turns out, according to Kyrie the Nets really only wanted KD

Maybe this is how plenty of major NBA moves work, but I found this to be pretty insane. Kyrie never met with the front office once? Zero meetings with Sean Marks or the assistant GM? From the Nets side I can understand it. Kevin Durant is the prize, and if that means you have to take on Kyrie Irving as well, you do it. It's no different than the Clippers doing what they had to do to bring in Paul George, because it meant getting Kawhi. So even if the Nets weren't thrilled with the idea of bringing in Kyrie, if it means Kevin Durant becomes a Net you do it and figure it out later.

Sometimes those swings don't work out, which is what we got in BKN. As it turned out, Kenny Atkinson wasn't long for the job, which isn't surprising when you consider that, according to Kyrie, he wasn't his biggest fan, and in the NBA, the stars often run the show. That's how we got to Steve Nash (who also wasn't long for the job) and while that experiment didn't work either, it was Kyrie's comments about Ime Udoka that I particularly enjoyed

Man, what a glorious series that was. Everyone at the top of the East was trying to manipulate their positioning in the standings so that they would avoid the big bad Nets as the 7 seed. The Celtics? They were very open about how they weren't running from any team, ended up in the #2 seed, and then swept the Nets in beautiful fashion. Jayson Tatum was an absolute monster in that series 

Fun times. Can't wait to experience them again once we get to 2026-27.

Kyrie also addressed the whole vaccine/suspension ordeal, in which he reveals that he requested that the Nets release him after deciding to suspend him

A pretty crazy request considering he had just signed a 4/136M max deal in the summer of 2019. What team is taking on nearly $80M in dead money? It was pretty obvious when all of that shit was going down that the Kyrie Era in Brooklyn was over, but to hear that he wanted to be released is wild. Especially when a lot of the shit that went on during that time was self-inflicted.

We also got Kyrie's perspective on the James Harden/Ben Simmons trade

I'll say this, Kyrie is right when he said it wasn't a fair trade. Uhhhhhhh ya think? For starters, Ben Simmons played a total of 0 games for the Nets after that trade in 2021-22. The next season? Just 42 games. The season after that? Just 15 games. Even if you're not the biggest James Harden fan, I think it's fair to say he's been MUCH more productive in the NBA since his days as a Net. So it's hard to disagree with Kyrie there. That trade was pretty much the beginning of the end.

Granted, Kyrie only played 29 games in 2021-22, so maybe Harden saw the writing on the wall and given his age thought he had a better chance of winning playing next to Embiid. That also didn't work out, but it's not a crazy thing to imagine given what a dumpster fire the Nets had been during his tenure. 

Eventually, it appeared that Kyrie's agent put the call in and shut things down because he was revealing too much, which was to be expected. This new media world has to be stressful as shit for agents since now players can just hop on a stream and say whatever they want to the masses. I'm also sure Adam Silver and the league office don't love this either, but what can they do? Ban players from doing streams? Good luck with that! Fine players for shit they say on a stream? No chance. The same way we saw current and former players start to transition into the podcast world, you're kidding yourself if you don't think that's eventually coming to the streaming world. Kyrie is really just the first huge name to do it and air out all this dirty laundry during one of them, but you can bet your ass there will be more players just like this over the next few years.