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watched it so you dont have to, although its a really interesting story.

TLDR: very minor but obvious speculation included.
Kyrie has always had mental health issues, but basketball hid them from even himself until he reached the top by winning the title and was left to confront his unresolved emotions from loss.

-kyrie mother and grandmother were victims of residential schools. For ppl who dont know, thats the process of abuse of indigenous by putting them in schools ran to assimilate them into white culture. a lot of people were killed and left with traumatic experiences.

- kyrie mom died of drugs as a result of her experiences when he was 4 years old... grandmother passed a year later. This is obviously the formative experience for the behaviour we see now, and probably has a lot to do with his antivax stance in not trusting both drugs or the government.

- basketball with his father was his way of coping. Irving said that the beginning of his "spiritual jorney/awakening" stuff started when the cavaliers won the title. This answers the question as to why this stuff seemed to start so suddenly

-Irving had put his all into basketball and felt unhappy, because there was something missing as a result of using basketball to cope with what hes missing

-he began to isolate himself from his teammates towards the end of 2017, which was reported by the media, and he felt like they would have had a better chance against the warriors even with durant if he wasnt going through his problems.

everything hes doing from the sage, the going home to brooklyn, the vaccine stuff, freaking out when a player called him the n word, his inability to handle the fans at the game, likely perceiving them as more racist than they are ..... it all makes infinitely more sense. him being so clutch in cleveland to not being able to handle big games anymore

I dont excuse some of his bad behavior, because theres tons of players with trauma who arent behaving like him, but i definitely understand that this seems to be him dealing with his mother after not acknowledging how much it hurt him for 20 years.

interviewers did an excellent job of asking the important questions and getting kyrie to coherently explain himself without talking about third eyes, and cosmic beings

It's sad that he has had such a background. It ultimately doesn't change much, unfortunately, but it certainly does a good job of explaining why he's so mercurial and problematic. That's a fairly common development in the face of such trials. I hope he's attending those issues with appropriate therapy and all that, because he can certainly afford the resources at this point. In the end, sports are a performance-driven environment, so there's only so much space for tolerance of things which erode a player's ability to contribute to the team, which can be very challenging for people atop an unstable mental health foundation, without question.

need a TLDR for your TLDR

Lockdown504090 wrote:

Watch on YouTube

interviewers did an excellent job of asking the important questions and getting kyrie to coherently explain himself without talking about third eyes, and cosmic beings

Ah crap, I was about to ask if the interviewer asked him about the asinine flat earth theory. May have watched it then

MH issues are no joke and I hope anyone suffering gets the help and support they need. Without watching the hour long vid, it does smack a bit of trying to rehab his image and excuse his behaviour as he seeks a new contract with an employer that pointed out they want players that do the opposite of everything he's done so far, but without walking a mile in his shoes, it's impossible to know for sure.

I think Kyrie is a good guy as a person, just not a good guy to have on your basketball team lol

tsherkin wrote:It's sad that he has had such a background. It ultimately doesn't change much, unfortunately, but it certainly does a good job of explaining why he's so mercurial and problematic. That's a fairly common development in the face of such trials. I hope he's attending those issues with appropriate therapy and all that, because he can certainly afford the resources at this point. In the end, sports are a performance-driven environment, so there's only so much space for tolerance of things which erode a player's ability to contribute to the team, which can be very challenging for people atop an unstable mental health foundation, without question.

i feel this so much. my only and only issue with him is his behavior now with how he deals with the media and fans. that stuff in boston was bad and some of his answers to the media in interviews seem to be him being off his center and talking about nonsense to prove to himself that hes okay.

I dealt with a lot of the same struggles as a kid so its interesting to watch a 30 year old man deal with things i went through at 12, and handle them the same way a 12 year old would.

Lockdown504090 wrote:i feel this so much. my only and only issue with him is his behavior now with how he deals with the media and fans. that stuff in boston was bad and some of his answers to the media in interviews seem to be him being off his center and talking about nonsense to prove to himself that hes okay.

I dealt with a lot of the same struggles as a kid so its interesting to watch a 30 year old man deal with things i went through at 12, and handle them the same way a 12 year old would.

Stress and mental health issues absolutely cause regression, or inhibition of development, particularly when they come during formative years. It's no bueno seeing it unfold.

yesh wrote:MH issues are no joke and I hope anyone suffering gets the help and support they need. Without watching the hour long vid, it does smack a bit of trying to rehab his image and excuse his behaviour as he seeks a new contract with an employer that pointed out they want players that do the opposite of everything he's done so far, but without walking a mile in his shoes, it's impossible to know for sure.

he said a while back that the nets know about his issues, so based on how much leeway they gave him, im pretty sure they know all this. idk how they can have a team thats so emotionally fragile next year with ben and kyrie though.

Seems like a great guy

Lockdown504090 wrote:

yesh wrote:MH issues are no joke and I hope anyone suffering gets the help and support they need. Without watching the hour long vid, it does smack a bit of trying to rehab his image and excuse his behaviour as he seeks a new contract with an employer that pointed out they want players that do the opposite of everything he's done so far, but without walking a mile in his shoes, it's impossible to know for sure.

he said a while back that the nets know about his issues, so based on how much leeway they gave him, im pretty sure they know all this. idk how they can have a team thats so emotionally fragile next year with ben and kyrie though.

And this is the challenge. Mental health issues are real and consequential, but there is a threshold of tolerance for something high-intensity like competitive sports at the top level of competition. You need to be put together enough to do your job and to contribute to your team and all of that, because even small things can derail the whole team. So there's a limit to how much leeway a team can offer while still hoping to actually compete. You get on a team that's like, "eh, we're hoping to squeak into the playoffs" and it's one thing, but if you're trying to contend? Mmmm, that starts to create major conflict of interest and erodes compassion in a hurry. So that's not an awesome situation.

Lockdown504090 wrote:

yesh wrote:MH issues are no joke and I hope anyone suffering gets the help and support they need. Without watching the hour long vid, it does smack a bit of trying to rehab his image and excuse his behaviour as he seeks a new contract with an employer that pointed out they want players that do the opposite of everything he's done so far, but without walking a mile in his shoes, it's impossible to know for sure.

he said a while back that the nets know about his issues, so based on how much leeway they gave him, im pretty sure they know all this. idk how they can have a team thats so emotionally fragile next year with ben and kyrie though.

Thanks for he addition. I wasn't aware of this part. Do you know if it was at the beginning of his time there, or whether he told them after he started disappearing for months on end?

One looks like an excuse, but more importantly and hopefully more accurately, the other is working with your employer to get the help you need.

hugepatsfan wrote:I think Kyrie is a good guy as a person, just not a good guy to have on your basketball team lol

It's a fair statement. Kyrie's intentions might be good, his talent is undeniable, but he's become a huge distraction off the court, and on the court he's been injury prone dating back to his college days at Duke.

You can make a real argument that your better off with Jrue Holiday - a guy who can't match Kyrie's talent on the court - because he's more reliable while the good he does off the court doesn't become a distraction for the team.

hugepatsfan wrote:I think Kyrie is a good guy as a person, just not a good guy to have on your basketball team lol

I think the same things that you!

dude has opened himself mentally. His stubbornness caused Cleveland to break up that team. I have respect for him to blame himself and not someone else

yesh wrote:

Lockdown504090 wrote:

yesh wrote:MH issues are no joke and I hope anyone suffering gets the help and support they need. Without watching the hour long vid, it does smack a bit of trying to rehab his image and excuse his behaviour as he seeks a new contract with an employer that pointed out they want players that do the opposite of everything he's done so far, but without walking a mile in his shoes, it's impossible to know for sure.

he said a while back that the nets know about his issues, so based on how much leeway they gave him, im pretty sure they know all this. idk how they can have a team thats so emotionally fragile next year with ben and kyrie though.

Thanks for he addition. I wasn't aware of this part. Do you know if it was at the beginning of his time there, or whether he told them after he started disappearing for months on end?

One looks like an excuse, but more importantly and hopefully more accurately, the other is working with your employer to get the help you need.

im going to assume it was last year when he started taking the time off for seemingly no reason, the moodiness, the swinging personality. It is partly about the money for sure, but im not gonna say thats the reason when the guy lost like 15 million and didnt say a word about it.

imDatknicksTape wrote: His stubbornness caused Cleveland to break up that team. I have respect for him to blame himself and not someone else

When it all went down, I figured one day, he would look back on it, with regrets. I didn't think it would be this soon but good on him for realizing things could've been different.

None of that excuses him from being an anti vaxx lunatic who held his team hostage all year. Its actaully gross he releasing this now to try and get some good PR

yesh wrote:MH issues are no joke and I hope anyone suffering gets the help and support they need. Without watching the hour long vid, it does smack a bit of trying to rehab his image and excuse his behaviour as he seeks a new contract with an employer that pointed out they want players that do the opposite of everything he's done so far, but without walking a mile in his shoes, it's impossible to know for sure.

100%, and thats what gross about this. Just like it was gross when anyone uses mental health as an excuse to be a **** person

We know what happened. Nothing he says about it today is going to be true.