"If you take Kyrie Irving's brain and put it in a bird right now, guess what that bird is going to do? It's going to fly backwards."
2025-26
Kyrie Irving
DAL · G · #11
r/NBA's 22nd most hated player.
- Height
- 6′2″
- Weight
- 195 lb
- Age
- 34
- Born
- Mar 23, 1992
- Experience
- 14 yrs
- From
- Duke
Verdict
42.6%40.5%17.0%
42.6%Negative3,690 comments
40.5%Neutral3,505 comments
17.0%Positive1,469 comments
−26Net sentimentpositive minus negative
n=8,664 comments about Kyrie Irving
Receipts
What the room said about Kyrie Irving, verbatim: the highest-scoring comments in each class.
Exhibit 01Negative.no flair Exhibit 02Negative.PHI flair I mean, he's furious that Kyrie wasted a full year of his prime in a Hall of Fame career because his dumb conspiracy theory ass wouldn't get a fucking required vaccine to play.
Exhibit 03Negative.no flair In coming media articles: “Revisiting Kyrie Irvings dark history of antisemitism”
Method
A receipt is a top-scoring comment about Kyrie Irving that cleared the classifier's confidence bar
and a second pass confirming it is about him. No usernames: the site judges players, not commenters.
Fans
Of what r/NBA says about Kyrie Irving, his own Mavericks fans are 38% negative, rival fans 44%, unflaired commenters 42%. Among the 9 fanbases with at least 200 comments, Celtics fans are hardest on him at 46% negative and Spurs fans kindest at 21% positive.
37.5%Own fansDAL flair · 493 comments
43.6%Rival fansevery other flair · 4,184 comments
42.2%Unflairedno flair · 3,987 comments
Method
A fanbase is the flair its commenters wear. Flairs with fewer than 200 comments about Kyrie Irving are left out of the lists;
the tick is his rate across every flaired comment, from summed counts, never a mean of rates.
Rooms
Kyrie Irving was talked about most on the front page: 5,501 of his 8,664 comments, −28 net sentiment against −26 across his season. His harshest room was news posts, −29 on 23% of his comments; his warmest highlights, −6 on 8% of his comments. The front page ran 16 points harsher than the game threads, the reverse of the usual order: his season was a story off the court.
Game threads2% of his comments35.223.0213
Front page63% of his comments44.216.45,501
Highlights8% of his commentsWarmest33.127.2713
News23% of his commentsHarshest42.713.71,979
Method
A room is the kind of post a comment sat under: a game thread, the front page, a highlight. A room is drawn when it holds at least 200 comments about Kyrie Irving; left out here: Post-game threads (171), Injury posts (30), Lowlights (29), Discussion posts (8), Daily chat thread (6). The bar is the room's share of his comments, its split the room's sentiment. Harshest and warmest are by net sentiment, positive minus negative, from summed counts, never a mean of rates.
Timeline
Over 4-week windows, the negative share of comments about Kyrie Irving ran between 34% and 48%. His worst week was the week of Feb 23, 52% negative of 213 comments; his best the week of Jun 8, 31% positive.
Method
Lines are 4-week rolling rates from summed counts (Σ negative ÷ Σ comments), drawn only where the window holds at least 30 comments. Dots are single weeks, sized by n. Bands follow the season calendar.
Games
Kyrie Irving never dressed this season; the room still talked about him in 1 game thread with at least 20 comments each.