Kyrie Irving Admits He Was Trolling With His Flat Earth Theory
BOSTON (CBS) -- Listening to Kyrie Irving, it's pretty clear the guy knows what he is talking about.
In addition to having ice in his veins on the court, he comes across as a pretty intellectual individual. That's why so many people had a tough time grasping the fact that he proclaimed earlier this year that he believes the earth is flat. It's an ideology he repeated at the NBA All-Star game, telling people to do their own research.
It turns out that proclamation was Irving doing some research of his own. Irving sat down with Rich Shertenlieb and Jon Wallach of 98.5 The Sports Hub's Toucher & Rich at Monday's Celtics media day, and admitted that he was indeed trolling everyone around the world with that flat earth stuff.
"Look, look. Here it is. All I want to do is be able to have that open conversation," Irving told Shertenlieb. "It was all an exploitation tactic. It literally spun the world -- your guy's world -- it spun it into a frenzy and proved exactly what I thought it would do in terms of how all this works. It created a division, or, literally stand up there and let all these people throw tomatoes at me, or have somebody think I'm somehow a different intellectual person because I believe that the earth is flat and you think the world is round. It created exactly that.
"It became like, because I think different, does that knock my intellectual capacity or the fact that I can think different things than you?" he asked. "That was the intent behind it. Do your own research, don't come to me and ask me. At the end of the day, you're going to feel and believe the way you want to feel. But don't knock my life over that.
"When I do something, I know my intent. And it proved what I thought it would," said Irving.
Or as Rich put it: Yes, the world is an easily troll-able place. A round, troll-able place.
Irving also discussed his decision to leave Cleveland, and how he has "no idea" what the Celtics are going to look like when the season starts -- but it's going to be a whole lot of fun. Listen to the full podcast above.