By Larry Durstin
After last season, I wrote a column entitled, “Is Cleveland Media Ready to Devour Cavs Irving?” in which I talked about how the Plain Dealer’s Tom Reed had written that Irving was directly responsible for getting coach Byron Scott fired, and the ubiquitous Terry Pluto had asserted that Irving had defied Scott by “refusing to play defense” while exhibiting the kind of insidious behavior that ended up costing Scott his job.
Knowing that scapegoating is as old as time itself and that hyperbole is central to most sports discussions, it came as no surprise that the inane local sports talk hosts ate this kind of gossipy yak-yak up and their eager-for-gloom-and-doom loop of listeners spit it out.
Having been burned so badly by LeBron James, the media and the fans made sure that Irving would not be coddled and deified like the duplicitous Chosen One. No one was about to be fooled again. Irving’s feet would be held to the fire to a degree that LeBron’s never were.
This is what’s called fighting the last war and it is fertile – though horribly flawed – terrain for simple minds seeking corner-bar solutions. Well, if last season marked the beginning of battle-action toward Irving, this season has been borderline nuclear. After getting off to a horrible start this year, the Cavs were barraged with severe criticism of GM Chris Grant, coach Mike Brown, shooting guard Dion Waiters and, most of all, the evil Irving, who – it was said throughout the year– was feuding with Waiters, couldn’t stand Brown and wanted out of Cleveland in the worst way.
Even after Grant was fired in February and the team played well for a month or so, the criticism of Irving continued to grow, culminating in an interview of ESPN’s Brian Windhorst, who absolutely brutalized Kyrie. The former Cavs beat writer asserted that the third-year All-Star guard hated Cleveland and couldn’t wait to get out, hated Waiters, had gotten Grant fired, was about to get Brown axed and had turned off LeBron James to such a degree that James would never come back to Cleveland as long as Irving was on the team. (The fact that Windhorst didn’t link Irving to the missing Malaysian aircraft was probably the result of his interview being cut short.)
Windhorst’s uncharacteristically nasty diatribe came on the heels of anonymous reports that Grant had gotten a raw deal and that he was actually in the process of successfully luring LeBron back to Cleveland. That is, of course, until the bad-seed Irving screwed everything up with his pouting, poor play and all-consuming hatred of Cleveland.
As these whispers of the glory-that-was-Grant grew, it didn’t take long for many in the media – including me – to put two and two together and surmise that the former GM may have been bending the ears of some of his favorite reporters in order to save his shattered reputation at the expense of everyone’s favorite target.
Then, last week, FSO’s Sam Amico – a very well-connected Cavs beat writer with a ton of league-wide sources – wrote, “I am being told by executives around the NBA that former Cavs GM Chris Grant has been spinning stories… One insider told me that Grant ‘is considered a buffoon around the league: Dishonest, incapable and full of (beans).’ It wasn’t the first time I heard something like that and I still often get that vibe about Grant when talking with other GMs.” Amico concluded by writing, “The point is Grant now has a reputation as someone who is attempting to tell the world the Cavs will be one huge disaster without him.”
Even as a long-time defender of most of the moves Grant made, the idea of Grant “spinning stories” to salvage his rep makes sense to me. First of all, it’s understandable how someone in his position might work to save his good name. More tellingly, Grant was known – by Cavs staffers and media members – as possessing the kind of petty paranoia regarding message control that would make Richard Nixon’s jowls shake with approval. Control freaks don’t let go easily.
Of course, it doesn’t really matter what Grant says. A season that was supposed to signal the beginning of a Cavs renaissance has devolved into one of back-stabbing, chaos and intrigue – with Irving and his below-par play, prickly personality and loose-lipped friends generally believed to be the main cause of the confusion and ineptness that characterized this year’s team.
Would that it were that simple. It’s true that Irving has plenty to answer for, as do those around him who are clearly running their mouths to anyone who will listen. And it doesn’t really matter what Irving says about loving of hating Cleveland, he will either sign or reject the team’s likely contract-extension offer this summer to stay with the team or not.
But as for the numerous reasons why this Cavs season turned into such a mess, Kyrie Irving’s play and off-court behavior don’t even make the top 10.
[Photo: Erik Drost]
Larry Durstin is an independent journalist who has covered politics and sports for a variety of publications and websites over the past 20 years. He was the founding editor of the Cleveland Tab and an associate editor at the Cleveland Free Times. Durstin has won 12 Ohio Excellence in Journalism awards, including six first places in six different writing categories. He is the author of the novel The Morning After John Lennon Was Shot. LarryDurstinATyahoo.com
2 Responses to “DURSTIN: Is Kyrie Irving What’s Wrong With the Cavs?”
Charles Michener
A good, necessary column. But Irving can’t be plausibly blamed for the Cavs’ hugely disappointing season. Their wildly erratic behavior – solid in rare spurts, almost mutinous at times. After all, he’s only one player and still just a kid. And to compare him in any way to LeBron is nonsense. The obvious culprit is the organization itself – from Dan Gilbert on down. There was too much confusion, too many damaging rumors. Mike Brown’s failure to mold a team before it was too late was glaring. Whether he should be fired at this juncture is hard to say. But there’s clearly a need for hard-headed soul searching. Irving is the cornerstone of the future. The Cavs must build around him. As for the media coverage – unattributed rumors and unsourced hearsay don’t add up to good journalism.
Larry Durstin
Great points, Charles