National Basketball Players Association Vice President Jaylen Brown called the nature of the eight-game suspension the Nets handed Kyrie Irving in November “unjust,” and said it violated the NBA’s collective bargaining agreement.”
“That’s my job as vice president of the union,” Brown said in an interview with The Ringer’s Logan Murdock. “The union is supposed to be an entity to protect the players, especially their rights and their freedom of speech. I feel like what the Brooklyn Nets did — I still feel the same way — it was inappropriate. I think it was like a public ransom note almost, in a sense, where he had a list of demands he had to do to return to the game. It was a violation of our CBA. It’s a violation of our agreement and kind of got looked over like it was nothing.”
The Nets suspended Irving a total of eight games for “failure to disavow antisemitism” after the star guard posted a link to a film widely considered antisemitic on both his Instagram and Twitter feeds in late October. The suspension came after Irving opted not to offer an apology for posting the film on two separate occasions — most notably explaining “I cannot be antisemitic if I know where I come from” — when pressed by reporters.
