Kyrie Irving – Head Games

Kyrie Irving arrived in Brooklyn as a bona fide weirdo. Four frustrating seasons, one antisemitism scandal, and zero covid shots later, he leaves on even stranger terms.

- By Simon Van Zuylen-Wood. Photographs by Ellington Hammond

LAST FALL, SEPTEMBER 11 FELL ON A SUNDAY, AND KYRIE IRVING SPENT MUCH OF IT AT HOME IN WEST ORANGE, NEW JERSEY, PLAYING VIDEO GAMES.

It was rainy and quiet, and his life was uncharacteristically lacking in drama. Irving had won an epic standoff with the Brooklyn Nets and the mayor of New York over his refusal to get vaccinated for COVID-19. His teammate and fellow oddball superstar Kevin Durant had withdrawn a recent trade request to stick by his side. Nike was preparing to release the ninth edition of his best-selling sneaker. On his Xbox, Irving fired up NBA 2K23 and activated a geeky, khaki-clad, one-inch-taller avatar of himself. He also began to livestream on Twitch, monologuing dreamily for three hours and 40 minutes to an audience of a few thousand total strangers.

9/11: a notable date for suspicious thinkers in general and an emotional one for Irving in particular. In 2001, when the first plane hit, his father, Drederick Irving, a financier and former basketball player, was on an escalator beneath the World Trade Center and had to fight his way through a jam at the revolving doors to escape. At school in New Jersey, 9-year-old Kyrie, who'd already lost his mother, spent hours not knowing if he had become an orphan. "Your life is worth living," he told his Twitch audience, advising those struggling with loss to seek help. He addressed the crowd repeatedly as a "tribe" and a "family," thanking them for providing a "safe space for me to speak" on their shared "journey."