During Kyrie Irving’s second season with the Boston Celtics, CBS News reported that he told cheering fans in TD Garden he was planning on sticking around. “If you guys will have me back, I plan on re-signing here,” he said. Instead, he signed with the Brooklyn Nets, raising the ire of Boston’s notoriously passionate fans.
Since then, there’s been open warfare between Irving and Celtics fans, with Irving dissing his former team whenever he plays in Boston. For example, he was spotted during one game deliberately stomping on the Celtics’ leprechaun logo. In another incident, a rowdy fan hurled a water bottle at Irving, which Irving chalked up to racism. “It’s been that way in history in terms of entertainment, performers and sports for a long period of time,” Irving later told reporters (via CNN), “just underlying racism and just treating people like they’re in a human zoo.”
Things got even uglier during a 2022 Nets-Celtics matchup when Boston fans enthusiastically chanted, “F*** you Kyrie!” Irving responded by placing his hands behind his head, keeping his back to the crowd while extending both of his middle fingers. At another point in the game, he flipped the bird once more. “It’s nothing new when I come into this building what it’s going to be like,” Irving said, defending his gesture during a postgame press conference, “but it’s the same energy they have for me, I’m going to have the same energy for them.”
