ESPN
Stephen A. Smith has publicly apologized to Kyrie Irving
Stephen A. Smith has issued a public apology to Kyrie Irving for the views he held about him in the early 2020s. Smith said his apology was prompted by watching Dr. Anthony Fauci’s Senate testimony.
On his radio show following Dr. Anthony Fauci’s Senate testimony on July 29 — in which he invoked the Fifth Amendment more than 100 times amid questions about pandemic policies and the origins of COVID-19 — Stephen A. Smith addressed how he and the media at large treated Kyrie Irving during the height of the vaccine mandate controversy.
Irving famously refused to receive the COVID-19 vaccine during the 2021-22 NBA season, which made him ineligible to play in New York City home games under the city’s vaccine mandate at the time.
“He has the right to go the hell away then. Retire. Retire, then. You left your teammates hanging,” Smith said of Irving in October 2021. “Trade him! If he ain’t gonna take the vaccine and can’t play half your home games, trade him.”
Smith was among the loudest voices criticizing Irving in the media at the time, calling the decision to remain unvaccinated selfish and damaging to his team.
Stephen A. Smith apologized to Kyrie Irving for calling him selfish over his COVID-19 vaccine stance
“I watched Dr. Fauci on Capitol Hill yesterday, and the person I thought about most was Kyrie Irving,” Smith said on his show.
“Kyrie Irving stood out in my mind because of the heat that he was taking… He refused the vaccine. New York City’s mandate made him ineligible for home games, and he linked his stance to people losing jobs over vaccine mandates.”
“In my opinion, particularly hindsight-wise, it didn’t make him stubborn or selfish. It made him brave. His willingness to stand up and say, ‘Nah, I’m not doing that.’ It’s just a time for reflection — to look at things differently. Kyrie Irving did nobody wrong. We did him wrong. I called him selfish. I was wrong. In hindsight, what Kyrie Irving did was brave.”
Irving’s stance certainly cost him as he forfeited his $11.4 million salary that season and walked away from a reported $100 million contract extension with the Brooklyn Nets.
He was eventually traded to the Dallas Mavericks in February 2023 in exchange for Spencer Dinwiddie, Dorian Finney-Smith, and a package of draft picks.