Charles Barkley and Reggie Miller go off on pathetic response to Kyrie Irving’s antisemitic lies

Charles Barkley, speaking on Tuesday night’s TNT ‘Inside the NBA’ broadcast, did not mince words when commenting on the on-going Kyrie Irving situation (detailed here), “I can’t believe that we ain’t talking about basketball. We’re talking about this idiot.”

While calling Brooklyn Nets guard Kyrie Irving an idiot is the pithy one-liner, his most effective fire was directed at NBA commissioner Adam Silver. Barkley called out Silver for what he sees as an inconsistent response to similar instances of players engaging in hate speech.

“I think he should have been suspended him,” Barkley said. “I think Adam should have suspended him...I think the NBA, they made a mistake. We’ve suspended people and fined people who have made homophobic slurs. And that was the right thing to do. If you insult the Black community, you should be suspended or fined heavily.”

Barkley wasn’t the only former player who had something to say during Tuesday night’s NBA action.

Former Indiana Pacers guard and member of the NBA Hall of Fame Reggie Miller blasted his peers for their inadequate response to Irving’s latest off-the-rails actions. These comments from Miller came during the first quarter of TNT’s broadcast of the Bulls-Nets contest on Tuesday:

“The players have dropped the ball on this case when it’s been one of their own. It’s been crickets,” Miller said. “And it’s disappointing, because this league has been built on the shoulders of the players being advocates. Right is right and wrong is wrong. And if you’re gonna call out owners, and rightfully so, then you’ve got to call out players as well. You can’t go silent in terms of this for Kyrie Irving. I want to hear the players and their strong opinions as well, just as we heard about Robert Sarver and Donald Sterling.”

Miller is most likely referring to this tepid statement issued by the NBA Players Association earlier in the day in which they generically called out anti-semitism but made no specific mention of NBAPA Vice President Kyrie Irving who is the cause of the situation.

“Anti-Semitism has no place in our society. The NBPA is focused on creating an environment where everyone is accepted. We are committed to helping players fully understand that certain words can lead to hateful ideologies being spread. We will continue to work on identifying and combating all hate speech wherever it arises.”

Unfortunately, we aren’t surprised to see an organization protect its own leadership while it acts differently in other circumstances. This is what organizations do - they protect their own. And while it’s understandable and a somewhat expected move, it also undermines their credibility in the long run. It’s good to see at least some prominent former NBA players take a stand and make clear the boundaries of right and wrong shouldn’t change based on what title someone happens to be holding.

The NBAPA isn’t the only organization protecting Irving, the Brooklyn Nets have been disappointing in their handling of the situation as well. SB Nation’s Ricky O’Donnell summed it up perfectly, “None of this is going to end well for Brooklyn. It’s time they stop selling their soul and start taking a real stand against the false and dangerous ideas Irving promoted.”

To date, all the Nets have done is protect Kyrie, allowing him to play on Tuesday and then shielding him from the media saying they didn’t want Irving to create a “fuss”.

We expect better from the NBA, its players and franchises. Kyrie Irving has a long history of going his own way. But it’s one thing to claim the world is flat (which he later apologized for), it’s another entirely for him to be spreading a video that includes a quote by Adolph Hitler, and is based on a book that argues the Holocaust was a lie.

We impatiently await Irving’s apology along with a much stronger stand by his peers and employers.