Mavs' Kyrie Irving Deleted Apology to Jewish Community for Promoting Antisemitic Film

According to both Ben Rohrbach of Yahoo Sports and Sam Amick of The Athletic, new Dallas Mavericks point guard Kyrie Irving deleted his Instagram post from November in which he apologized to the Jewish community for amplifying an antisemitic movie on his social media platforms.

On Tuesday, Irving was asked about deleting that post and said that he regularly deletes old posts and that he stood by the reasons he made the apology:

"I delete things all the time, and it's no disrespect to anyone within the community," he said. "Just living my life."

Not everyone was so willing to brush aside Irving's deleted post as a non-story:

Irving's initial response to the backlash to his decision to share the antisemitic film, Hebrews to Negroes: Wake Up Black America back in November was, at least publicly, obstinance.

A Rolling Stone article from Jon Blistein said that film propagated ideas more "in line with more extreme factions of the Black Hebrew Israelites, which have a long history of misogyny, homophobia, xenophobia, Islamophobia, and especially antisemitism."

Despite Nets governor Joe Tsai and NBA commissioner Adam Silver publicly condemning Irving's decision to amplify the movie, Irving resisted on several occasions to outright apologize for his actions or to denounce antisemitism.

The Nets responded by suspending him for a minimum of five games and saying he would not be permitted to return to the game until he satisfied a "series of remedial measures that address the harmful impact of his conduct."

His apology on Instagram shortly followed and he ended up sitting for eight games.

As for the basketball side of Irving's arrival in Dallas, he practiced with the Mavericks for the first time on Tuesday and took a few shots at the Nets, though given his actions while with the team it's not shocking that he might have clashed with individuals in the organization.

"For me, personally, sitting in this seat today, I just know I want to be in a place where I'm celebrated, and not just tolerated, or just, you know, kind of dealt with in a way that doesn't make me feel respected," he told reporters.