This season has been one of great disappointment and controversy for Cleveland Cavaliers All-Star Kyrie Irving.
Expected to be one of the more competitive teams in the Eastern Conference before the season began, the Cavaliers have floundered and are all but out of playoff contention after their latest 117-98 loss to the Atlanta Hawks on Friday.
More importantly, there have been rumors all season long about how Irving doesn’t want to remain in Cleveland – rumors Irving has denied. The most recent report, however, went even further, saying he has wanted out of Cleveland for years. Robert Attenweiler of Cavstheblog.com discussed with Brian Windhorst of ESPN:
The truth is [Kyrie’s] camp has been putting out there for years – years – that he doesn’t want to be in Cleveland. That they don’t want him in Cleveland. He doesn’t like Mike Brown. He didn’t like Chris Grant. He doesn’t like Dion Waiters. He’s already gotten a General Manager fired. He might get Mike Brown fired. This is the last time – once he signs he loses all of his leverage – so this is the last time he gets to enact leverage. I know he’s said all the right things so, fine, on July 1, when they offer a max contract – which they will – and I don’t even know if he’s a max player, but you have to sign him – sign a five year, no out. That’s what a max contract is. A max contract is five years, no out. If you want out or you want three years, that’s not a max contract. You want three years? Okay, we’ll give you $12 million a year. We’re not giving you the full thing.
I’m just giving you my feel right now and my feel is that he’s not crazy about [signing the full max extension] unless he gets everything checked off across the board.
[…]
Now, Kyrie has been very upset by this stuff but, whether he wants to acknowledge it or not, it exists out there and I’m just saying the way it is. I’m sure Cavs fans are upset about it. The Cavs are upset about it. When I’ve written about it, the Cavs have been like “Why does this stuff have to be written about us?” I say, “It has to be written about you because this could happen.”
Yes, this is starting to get ugly. Of course, no one is more upset about the rumors of Irving’s discontent than Irving himself, and he expressed himself fully in a string of tweets:
Sick to my stomach with all these rumors and accusations. Can I play without media guessing at my life and putting B.S out for headlines.
— Kyrie Irving (@KyrieIrving) April 5, 2014
It brings nothing but negativity to the team and portraying me as something I’m not. I don’t want or need the attention, so it can stop now. — Kyrie Irving (@KyrieIrving) April 5, 2014
At least be man or woman enough to come and ask me. There’s no such source as “Kyrie’s camp”, nothing but nonsense.
— Kyrie Irving (@KyrieIrving) April 5, 2014
— Kyrie Irving (@KyrieIrving) April 5, 2014
Unfortunately for Irving, the rumors are out there and it is going to stick, especially when coming from a reliable reporter like Windhorst. The reason it will stick is because everything makes perfect sense. The Cavaliers have been a terrible team ever since Irving landed there. Mike Brown hasn’t exactly brought out the best out of the point guard, and it is perfectly clear that there is a rift or at least a dysfunctional relationship between Irving and Waiters (based on reports from earlier this season). We can only wait to see how all of this plays out for Cleveland, but right now, it’s not looking well at all.
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James Park is the chief blogger of Sheridan Hoops. You can find him on twitter @SheridanBlog.
This issue is the absurdity of absurdities. Let me get this straight: the purpose of the Sin Tax is to gouge those who purchase alcohol and cigarettes not because anyone is trying to discourage consumption but rather so the County can use that money to pay for sports stadiums that do not produce anything but a fleeting moment witnessing the passing of a football, the dribbling of a basketball and the throwing of a baseball so that such a minute tidbit of diversion can be enjoyed by all. The stupidity of this proposition is enough to make your head spin even though the spin doctors advocating passage of this nonsense are already doing a pretty good job of hypnotizing the voters to actually consider supporting it. At least the Robber Barons of the previous centuries provided something tangible such as oil, steel, railroads etcetera. These team owners do not even provide one tangible thing that could ever be considered with the term “value added.” Almost everyone discusses this “enterprise” as though it is the same thing as industry {which it is not}. The price of admission is essentially a voluntary tax paid by those who can afford it to pay those who don’t need it. If this isn’t a transfer of wealth I don’t know what is.
The real outrage here is the fact that taxes on alcohol and cigarettes will not be used to aid in the reduction of addiction {hence the reference to “sin”} but rather to stuff the pockets of all three teams who could easily afford to pay for the repairs themselves. The vote was rammed through the last time {under somewhat suspicious circumstances} and hear we go again. But this time…not so fast!!! We the voters of Cuyahoga County are going to fight the proponents on this one and we don’t care if the teams up and go somewhere else {please see my views on entertainment below} because quite frankly there are simply more important things than sports and the unearned money that comes with it. Those in public office who are too stupid and lazy to find other ways to grow a major American city need to resign and leave their self-seeking political ambitions on the scrapheap of history. Don’t ever let it be said that this was time when the tide ran out on Cuyahoga County but rather was the time when the voters rose up to welcome the rising tide of change and rebuked this pathetic paradigm our previous elected leaders embraced. Let the battle be joined.
And now to the real underlying issue at hand:
One of the most disturbing facts about our capitalist nation is the misappropriation of funds directed to the salaries of entertainers. Everyone should agree that the value an athlete, movie star, talk-show host, team-owner, etcetera brings to the average citizen is very small. Granted, they do offer a minuscule of diversion from our daily trials and tribulations as did the jesters in the king’s court during the middle ages. But to allow these entertainers to horde such great amounts of wealth at the expense of more benevolent societal programs is unacceptable. They do not provide a product or a service so why are they rewarded as such?
Our society is also subjected to the “profound wisdom” of these people because it equates wealth with influence. Perhaps a solution to this problem and a alternative to defeated school levies, crumbling infrastructures, as well as all the programs established to help feed, clothe and shelter those who cannot help themselves would be to tax this undeserved wealth. Entertainers could keep 1% of the gross earnings reaped from their endeavor and 99% could be deposited into the public coffers.
The old ideas of the redistribution of wealth have failed, and it is time to adapt to modern-day preferences. People put their money into entertainment above everything else; isn’t it time to tap that wealth? Does anyone think this will reduce the quality of entertainment? It seems to me that when entertainers received less income, the quality was much higher.
So it’s ‘perfectly clear’ there is a ‘riff’ between Irving and Waiters? Are they in a band together or should that say ‘rift’? Also, define ‘perfectly clear’ because both players say there is no problem. Oh, maybe that was the imaginary ‘Irving Camp’ or ‘Waiters camp’ that made that ‘perfectly clear’?