Kyrie Irving is a Dallas Maverick and that leaves Kevin Durant in Brooklyn
One experiment begets another. That’s how basketball works. Brooklyn fizzled, crackled, and popped. Now what’s left is Kevin Durant all on his lonesome with a supporting cast that may actually gel into something other than milquetoast. Full disclosure, I’ve never been so interested to see Kevin Durant pan out as I am on this day in February.
What a long, strange trip this has been for him. When he cocks that shooting wrist for the time being, he will resemble some castled rock wading out the tides, reaching back for the continent, like some coal-scratched ember of a Romantic painting.
Meanwhile, Kyrie Irving’s journey is a flat circle. He is what he always was will be minutia et al.
Matt Moore captured some of that feeling here.
And David Trink reflected on Irving’s arrival in Dallas from the eye of the storm: “What it now means to be a Jewish Mavericks fan, courtesy of Kyrie Irving.”
I wrote about the trade here, and I thought I did an okay job with it. Then I read Katie Heindl’s “Tornado Season.”
I don’t think Kyrie is necessarily done wowing certain basketball fans on the court. I also don’t think he’s entirely done wearing out the patience of others off it.
I doubt he’ll publicly engage with antisemitism again, but he seems too prone to reactionary sentiment and conspiratorial conjecture to leave the discourse well enough alone. Morphing back into strictly a basketball player seems nearly impossible, especially considering that identity never really was in Kyrie’s bag. He is a blandly complex individual. He is also charitable with his money. That’s part of the reason his forays are so deflating.
And then there is Kevin Durant. The opposition between the two is not two distinct halves. Kyrie’s social media often stripped the world of context, and KD often deferred to his ghost accounts for a vicious defense of his game and livelihood. They are hyper present in their brooding.
But there is also that memorable moment while accepting the MVP when KD spoke about his mother. Both Kyrie and KD are migratory individuals as far as superstars go. Through their sensitive curiosities, neither is loyal to a franchise or a city. They have both been living passages from Siddhartha.
And Kyrie seems destined to stay on the move. Even if he and Luka raise a championship banner, the two together for much longer than a couple seasons is impossible to imagine. Of course, the Kyrie fan will tell you that’s the wrong way to look at it. They will tell you Dallas can have his loyalty if they only extend perpetual love and support. Focus on the man’s money, but neither his words nor his absences.
The future for KD, however, seems uncertain too. The only surprise would be him staying put. And that seems an all too perfect symmetry when considering that the first time he surprised everyone was by going all the way West.
