After sharing an antisemitic movie on his Twitter timeline, NBA star Kyrie Irving found himself suspended by the Nets and losing out on a number of endorsement deals.
One of those lucrative endorsement deals was Irving’s contract with Nike who had been producing a signature shoe for the Nets’ guard since 2014 and has had a sponsorship deal with with the 30-year-old perennial All-Star since his rookie year in 2011.
Kyrie Irving is no longer a Nike athlete, Nike spokesperson says. The sides have parted ways one month after Nike suspended its relationship with the Nets star. Irving has one of most popular signatures shoes in the NBA and is now a sneaker free agent.
— Shams Charania (@ShamsCharania) December 5, 2022
Rather than fight the contract cancellation that Nike made official on Monday, Kyrie Irving is now trying really hard to spin it to appear like he wanted out of the deal that paid him millions.
— Hélà (@KyrieIrving) December 5, 2022
When he walked on the court at the Barclays Center for Wednesday night’s Nets game against the Charlotte Hornets, Irving was wearing one of his usual Nike signature sneakers, the Nike Kyrie 3 PE in the “Raygun” colorway.
However, to hide the Nike logo on the sneakers Irving covered them with tape and then wrote messages on them.
On one side it read, “I am free. Thank you God…I am.” On the other were the words, “logo here.”
When he came out for the second half of the game, Irving had changed shoes, switching to another pair of Nikes with marker scribbled all over the logos.
Numerous NBA fans found Kyrie Irving’s Nike protest to be all too hilarious.
“Yeah whenever I lose my job I just say ‘I am free’ like it was my plan all along,” one fan joked.
Kyrie Irving in his next game pic.twitter.com/L3BfYkgt3m
— NBA Memes (@NBAMemes) December 6, 2022
“Free from??? Getting paid? He’s still wearing the shoe. He just isn’t getting the bag. He trashed Nike and his last model shoe, but stayed in their pocket and kept banging those checks. No shade on getting paid, just curious what he’s ‘free’ from now,” another fan tweeted.
These hard as hell😂
— Aj (@loading_aja) December 8, 2022
“Kyrie my guy but bruh…he still wearing the ‘Nike’ brand/shoes. I understand it’s a statement but he coulda went to Dick’s sporting goods and bought some hooping shoes,” someone else remarked.
Bro really had to gaslight himself on his shoes.
— Brandon (@Brandon_DGAF) December 8, 2022
Someone else on Twitter hilariously pointed out that there was one logo on each of his shoes that Irving was unable to cover up: the ones carved into the soles.