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NBA superstar Kyrie Irving reveals he did NOT want to play for Team USA and claims he was blocked from representing country of his birth
- Kyrie Irving says he was blocked from playing for Australia
- Irving, 31, was born Down Under before returning to the US
- He wanted to represent the Boomers but wasn’t allowed to
Controversial NBA superstar Kyrie Irving had his heart set on representing the Australian national basketball team before a move was blocked by Team USA.
Irving, 31, was born in Melbourne in 1992 to expatriate parents, before moving back to the United States when he was just two years old.
But despite his short stint Down Under, Irving has revealed that he does not consider himself an American basketballer.
‘I consider myself an international player even though I played on Team USA,’ Irving said on a Twitch stream.
‘A lot of my peers laugh at me when I bring it up and some fans may not agree, but I was born in Australia.’
Dallas star Kyrie Irving says he did not want to represent the US national basketball team
Irving won gold in 2016 but was blocked from representing the country of his birth
Irving, who went onto win the 2016 NBA title and Olympic Gold that same year, was asked to represent Team USA as a prodigious 17-year-old, but wanted to represent the Boomers instead.
However, his desire to play for Australia was blocked by the powers that be in the American set-up.
‘Team USA asked me to play for them when I was 17 or 18 … I wanted to play for Australia, but it just didn’t happen,’ he added.
‘Coach K (Former Team USA coach Mike Krzyzewski) wasn’t going to let that happen either.’
Despite missing out on Irving, the Boomers have boasted a plethora of NBA talent in their ranks over the years, with Ben Simmons, Jock Landale and Patty Mills representing Australia on the international stage.
Widely regarded as one of basketball’s most controversial figures, Irving has courted criticism for expressing flat earth theories, anti-vaccine sentiments as well as anti-Semitic rhetoric.
He claims Mike Krzyzewski blocked him from representing the Boomers instead of Team USA
In one of his posting sprees, he took aim at Bill Gates by reposting a video that assessed his role in the production of vaccines and him profiting from the Covid-19 global pandemic.
Not one to shy away from the big issues, he also addressed the collapse of the Silicon Valley Bank, reposting a tweet that put forward a potential scenario in which ‘more banks will collapse and the financial system [will] spiral out of control.’
In a separate post, he also posted a quote which reads ‘unlearning all the false information we have been programmed with takes time and patience. You got this.’
