The Brooklyn Nets have suspended their star player Kyrie Irving for at least five games without pay. Last week, Kyrie Irving caused a stir after retweeting a link to a documentary featuring anti-semitic themes. On Wednesday, The Brooklyn Nets and Irving pledged $500,000 each for anti-hate groups. Kyrie stopped short of an apology with the donation. On Thursday, given a chance to officially apologize for the retweet and say he wasn’t anti-semitic, Irving said, “I’m not the one who made the documentary.” That was enough for the Nets to suspend him. A statement from the Nets said “Such failure to disavow antisemitism when given a clear opportunity to do so is deeply disturbing, is against the values of our organization, and constitutes conduct detrimental to the team. Early this morning, Irving did make an apology on Instagram. He wrote, “To all Jewish families and Communities that are hurt and affected from my post, I am deeply sorry to have caused you pain, and I apologize. I initially reacted out of emotion to being unjustly labeled Anti-Semitic, instead of focusing on the healing process of my Jewish Brothers and Sisters that were hurt from the hateful remarks made in the Documentary.”
