By BRIAN MAHONEY, AP Basketball Author
NEW YORK (AP) — NBA Commissioner Adam Silver wants an apology and Kyrie Irving still is not going to offer one.
Shortly after Silver said Irving “made a reckless decision” by tweeting out a link to a movie containing antisemitic material last week, the Brooklyn Nets guard again stopped wanting saying he was sorry for doing so.
Irving said some things in “Hebrews to Negroes: Wake Up Black America” were unfaithful, but he didn’t say he shouldn’t have posted a link to it.
“I’m not the one who made the documentary,” Irving said after the Nets practiced Thursday.
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Irving again said he meant no harm in posting the tweet — which he has since deleted — but didn’t apologize for doing so and as a substitute asked reporters why they weren’t asking questions on the history of Blacks in America, saying 300 million of his ancestors are buried within the country.
“Where were you guys asking those self same questions once I was a child learning concerning the traumatic events of my familial history and what I’m proud to come back from and proud to face here,” Irving said, “and why once I repeat myself that I’m not going to face down, it has nothing to do with dismissing some other race or group people.
“I’m just happy with my heritage and what we’ve been through and the proven fact that this has pinned me against the Jewish community and I’m here answering questions of whether or not I’m sorry or not about something I didn’t create and was something I shared, and I’m telling everybody I’m taking responsibility, than that’s where I sit.”
Silver’s comments were the second statement the league office has issued on the most recent Irving controversy, and the primary during which Irving was referenced by name.
Irving and the Nets announced Wednesday, together with the Anti-Defamation League, that every can be donating $500,000 to anti-hate causes. But Silver felt Irving needed to go further.
“While we appreciate the proven fact that he agreed to work with the Brooklyn Nets and the Anti-Defamation League to combat antisemitism and other types of discrimination, I’m dissatisfied that he has not offered an unqualified apology and more specifically denounced the vile and harmful content contained within the film he selected to publicize,” the commissioner said.
Silver added that he will probably be meeting with Irving in person inside the subsequent week. The league’s first statement, clearly in reference to Irving’s tweet, said “hate speech of any kind is unacceptable and runs counter to the NBA’s values of equality, inclusion and respect.”
Silver’s comments and Irving’s reluctance to apologize got here hours before the FBI said it had received credible details about a “broad” threat to synagogues in Latest Jersey, Irving’s home state.
The National Basketball Players Association also put out an announcement this week echoing the NBA’s original comments. The NBPA also didn’t mention Irving by name; Irving is a vp of the union and a member of its executive committee.
Asked what within the film he disagreed with, Irving responded: “I believe a number of the criticism of the Jewish faith and the community of course. Some points made in there that were unlucky.”
During his first comments since a combative press conference Saturday during which he defended his right to post, Irving was asked specifically about his beliefs regarding the Holocaust.
“Those falsehoods are unlucky,” Irving said, referring to content within the film. “And it’s not that I don’t imagine within the Holocaust. I never said that. Never, ever have said it. It’s not come out of my mouth. I never tweeted it. I never liked anything prefer it. So the Holocaust in itself is an event meaning something to a big group of those that suffered something that would have been avoided.”
He was finally asked if he had any antisemitic beliefs.
“I can’t be antisemitic if I do know where I come from,” Irving said.
ADL CEO Jonathan Greenblatt reacted to a video of Irving’s response to that query on Twitter by writing: “The reply to the query ‘Do you’ve got any antisemitic beliefs’ is all the time “NO” without equivocation.
“We took @KyrieIrving at his word when he said he took responsibility, but today he didn’t make good on that promise,” Greenblatt added. “Kyrie clearly has a whole lot of work to do.”
Irving didn’t say if he had taken part within the meetings between his representatives, the Nets and the ADL. He added that he is not afraid to proceed speaking about his beliefs.
“So I take my full responsibility again, I repeat it, for posting something on my Instagram or Twitter that will have had some unlucky falsehoods in it,” Irving said. “But I also am a human being that’s 30 years old and I’ve been growing up in a rustic that’s told me that I wasn’t value anything and I come from a slave class and I come from a those that are supposed to be treated the best way we’ve been treated daily.
“So I’m not here to match anyone’s atrocities or tragic events that their families have handled, generations of time. I’m just here to proceed to reveal things that our world continues to place in darkness. I’m a lightweight, I’m a beacon of sunshine. It’s what I’m here to do.”
AP Basketball Author Tim Reynolds contributed to this report.
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