Kyrie has first-hand experience playing the villain in a media story.
Since social media has consumed much of our lives, Kyrie Irving has been acutely aware of the hidden warfare in which NBA players find themselves.
Particularly superstars, the top players, and Kyrie is undeniably one of them. We all tend to lose sight of the fact that, despite the greatness or awfulness of an NBA player’s performance, there is still a real person executing the jumpshot or the incredible crossover, because to the way social media has elevated these inflated personalities.
The hot take industry
Media personalities who never experienced the camaraderie of a locker room are taking shots at the players like never before, being protected behind the shield of journalistic integrity, even though their hot takes change almost every day.
There is no need to name them since Irving didn’t either, when he talked about the issue with his buddy Brett Carroll on his YouTube stream.
“Confrontation is not normal anymore. Where, back in the day, media coming in our locker room, there were natural confrontations going on. It also allowed people to authenticate what they meant or how they meant it… We do have a very lazy media space right now when it comes to certain topics and the way we discuss players and the way we discuss the craft. Even the way we discuss each other,” Kyrie said passionately before continuing:
“When it comes to basketball takes, it’s hard not to feel sensitive about what I love to do… I’m sensitive. Now, am I sensitive to the point where I would try to go at somebody in the public forum,” Irving said.
He does understand the business part of those hot takes.
“I just process those emotions a lot differently. I take it in stride. I understand that this does help the business grow. Now, if I’m at the butt of the jokes and they’re not giving me any grace, that’s the problem I’ve had over the last couple of years,” Irving admits.
Social media made this happen
Now, even though Irving is talking about media pundits, social media was mentioned first because there are no hot takes from those experts if we don’t live in the social media era.
Think about it, apps like Facebook, X, Instagram and TikTok have made our attention spans shorter than ever in human history and to grab that attention, members of the media have to do those hot takes sometimes to grab the viewership.
This is how those early morning talk shows get paid and how the networks keep going. Eyeballs are all they’re looking for when making deals with advertisers.
The problem is, as Irving mentioned briefly as well, when the basketball take mixes the off-court behaviour into the player we’re seeing on the court. We’ve seen exactly that in Kyrie’s case when he was with the Brooklyn Nets, often blaming his eccentric persona for his or the team’s struggles.
It really has nothing to do with the game, but those kinds of segments today will unfortunately always get more clicks, views and engagement than a video talking about different sets Irving’s Dallas Mavericks are running, for example.
So, sadly, until the audience changes it’s habits, the media will continue with the kind of coverage we’re seeing today.
Media pundits could change direction in theory to force that change, with basketball being the biggest focus, but the networks will never go for that as it would mean loss of viewership and loss of huge chunks of money.
And that’s the last thing they’ll accept.
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