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Shaq, Barkley call out Irving, NBA's handling of antisemitism controversy

Amid the continuing fallout from Kyrie Irving’s decision to post a link to an antisemitic documentary on social media, Hall of Famers Shaquille O’Neal and Charles Barkley have spoken out against Irving and the NBA’s handling of the situation.

The Brooklyn Nets guard faced immediate backlash after posting about the film on both Twitter and Instagram last week. Nets owner Joe Tsai said he was “disappointed that Kyrie appears to support a film based on a book full of antisemitic disinformation.” The NBA put out a statement denouncing hate speech of any kind, though not mentioning Irving by name.

Asked Saturday about why he chose to share a link to such a film, Irving stopped short of apologizing for his posts.

“I’m in a unique position to have a level of influence on my community. And what I post does not mean that I support everything that’s being said or everything that’s being done, or I’m campaigning for anything,” he said. “All I do is post things for my people and my community, and those that it’s actually going to impact. Anybody else who has criticism, it obviously wasn’t meant for them.”

On Tuesday, O’Neal and Barkley shared their thoughts on the situation during their ‘Inside the NBA’ segment.

“You have to be aware of what you’re doing,” O’Neal said of Irving and his approach to social media. “You have to be aware that sometimes when you put stuff out, not everybody’s going to like it. Some people are conscious, some people are not. I can tell he’s not conscious — he doesn’t really care what’s going on.

“The game that we love, that we promote, it brings people together. It hurts me sometimes when we have to sit up here and talk about stuff that divides the game. Now, we’ve got to answer for what this idiot has done.”

With Irving yet to face any discipline from the league for posting the antisemitism film link to his 4.6 million Twitter followers and 17.5 million Instagram followers, Barkley called out the NBA’s inaction, too. He has since deleted the posts.

“I think the NBA dropped the ball. I think he should’ve been suspended,” Barkley said. “They made a mistake. We have suspended people and fined people who have made homophobic slurs, and that was the right thing to do. If you insult the Black community, you should be suspended or fined heavily."

Although a suspension or fine may still come down from the league, Barkley stressed the need for a message to be sent by way of handling situations like these more decisively.

“It’s too late now,” he said of the discipline Irving still may face. “The NBA’s giving in to peer pressure. If one of our players does something, the team or the league has to do something immediately. … This should’ve been handled already.”

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