Kyrie Irving Passes on the Chance to Walk Back Flat-Earth Comments

Kyrie Irving sounds like he still believes Earth is flat.

This is the headline on CBS Boston atop a clip of Kyrie Irving’s interview in 98.5 The Hub’s Toucher and Rich: “Kyrie Irving Admits He Was Trolling With His Flat Earth Theory​.”

But here’s the thing, Kyrie doesn’t do that. 

The hosts practically begged Irving to say he was kidding about the whole flat-earth thing. “You’re trolling everyone, aren’t you?” one asked. “You don’t believe that,” the other said. And then Kyrie went on to issue a total non-denial. (You can listen to the relevant portion of the interview here.)

“Look, look. Here it is. All I want to do is be able to have that open conversation. It was all an exploitation tactic. It literally spun the world—your guys’ world—it spun it into a frenzy and proved exactly what I thought it would do in terms of how all this works. It created a division, or, literally stand up there and let all these people threw tomatoes at me, or have somebody think I’m somehow this different intellectual person because I believe that the earth is flat and you think the world is round. It created exactly that. It did exactly that, to where it became like because I think different, does that ever knock my intellectual capacity or the fact that I can think different things than you can?”

“That was the intent behind it. Do your own research, don’t come to me and ask me. At the end of the day, you’re going to feel and believe the way you want to feel. But don’t knock my life over that.”

“Whenever I’m doing something, I know my intent behind it. And it exactly proved what I thought it would.”

Where in there does he “admit he was trolling”? It sounds more like he’s saying he was trying to make a point about mocking people for their (factually incorrect) personal beliefs. He even comes close to doubling down when he says, “At the end of the day, you’re going to feel and believe the way you want to feel. But don’t knock my life over that.”

This story is never going to die until we send Kyrie into orbit.