Kevin Love appears to subtweet Kyrie Irving after trade request
Kyrie Irving reportedly requested a trade away from the Cleveland Cavaliers last week. The news rocked the organization. Then it rocked the entire NBA world when it became public Friday afternoon.
In the wake of the Internet hailstorm, somebody at @InsideHoops thought to check in on Kevin Love, Irving’s teammate and one of the many players who has been rumored to be on the way out of Cleveland over the past several months.
Hi @KevinLove, how are things
— InsideHoops.com NBA (@InsideHoops) July 21, 2017
It was a funny joke. Until it became more than a joke when Love quote-tweeted it with a response:
Life is amazing. No complaints. Things are a little peculiar. But no complaints. Now go kick some rocks https://t.co/Tz62YyGeYt
— Kevin Love (@kevinlove) July 21, 2017
Normal, innocent response, right?
Wrong — well, probably wrong.
There’s something peculiar about Love’s word choice. Surely he was aware of Kyrie Irving’s comments at a Sports Illustrated event this past week:
“We’re in a very peculiar place, and we just need to make sure that all our pieces are aligned first, and then we go from there,” Irving said. “It’s the summertime, a lot of craziness going on in the NBA, so best to just observe, and then see what happens. Obviously, there’s some things that I’m pretty sure our organization wants to do, and we’ll go from there.”
Kyrie Irving says the Cavs are in a "peculiar place" pic.twitter.com/aGHYboQb5H
— The Crossover (@TheCrossover) July 19, 2017
Those comments obviously take on an entirely different tone now that we are aware of Irving’s trade request, and aware that these comments were made after the meeting in which Irving made the request.
They also, of course, frame Love’s tweet, which is just amazing. There are no takeaways from it, no judgements as to how Love is actually feeling. There’s just comedy.
LeBron also tweeted shortly after the news of Irving’s trade request broke, but his tweet was a tribute to Ray Allen, and (presumably) unrelated to Irving:
A MONSTER!!!!!! Jesus Shuttlesworth at his finest. Young boys recognize https://t.co/JdXdiuyi7S
— LeBron James (@KingJames) July 21, 2017
James and the rest of the Cavs were aware of Irving’s request before the initial report from ESPN’s Brian Windhorst on Friday afternoon. But Love was clearly aware that it had been made public, and, without hesitation, subtweeted like a boss.
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