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Kyrie Irving still believes Earth is flat and he controls dreams

Commentary: The Cleveland Cavaliers basketball star says he wasn't joking about being a flat-earther. He also appears to have supernatural powers.

Chris Matyszczyk
3 min read

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"You believe what, Kyrie?"

Gregory Shamus, Getty Images

Ever since Cleveland Cavaliers' guard Kyrie Irving declared that the Earth is flat, I've been walking more carefully when I reach the end of the street.

Should you have missed Irving's words, they were uttered last month on a podcast featuring teammates Richard Jefferson and Channing Frye. Irving insisted that we were being lied to about such basic things by the global elites.

Astrophysicist Neil DeGrasse Tyson insisted that he was wrong.

"If he wants to think Earth is flat, go right ahead -- as long as he continues to play basketball and not become head of any space agencies. My point is if you have certain limitations of understanding of the natural world, stay away from jobs that require that," he told TMZ.

Irving seems unperturbed. He appeared on Tuesday on the very same Frye-Jefferson podcast and flatly restated his position.

He said he didn't expect the likes of Tyson to be happy with what he said. He found the reaction to his comments "hilarious."

"Just because we don't believe what the world -- or the majority -- thinks, why punish that?" he said.

"It's OK to have your own thoughts and be able to function and be able to formulate your own thoughts and opinions and still be able to convey them to other people," he said. Indeed, it is, especially if you're a basketball star and have many people who hang on your every dunk.

For Irving, as for so many politicians, the mere existence of certain beliefs is very important.

As he wondered about whether the Illuminati really do meet, he mused: "We don't know for sure whether they exist or not." It's as if he's never visited Silicon Valley. But he added: "The fact that there is a belief means that there is something, something that we're holding onto."

There may be something. And whenever you look at the people who meet at Davos once a year, you worry what that something is. But does this mean that we should ignore scientific evidence?

Still, Irving moved on to another area of personal science -- or, who knows, the supernatural arts. He said he likes to take naps. He related a nap he'd taken on Tuesday.

"While I'm sleeping, there's this moment where I'm like, 'Ah, man, I feel like I want to get up right now, but I can't,' so I felt like I was looking at myself sleep," he began.

Could this have been an out-of-body experience? We've seen those in sci-fi movies.

"I kept hearing the door, and I kept seeing somebody, and I kept feeling something go over me, like over my back," Irving continued.

He said he couldn't wake up but he was very conscious of what was happening and he intervened in his own dream. His conclusion? "I can control my dreams."

There was more. There was. It's just that I ended up being bathed in a belief that I'm glad I'm a Golden State Warriors fan.

And then I remember that the Warriors' Draymond Green reacted like this to Irving's initial flat-Eartherism: "I can make a round picture with my iPhone today on the panorama camera and make it look round. So, I don't know. I'm not saying I think it's flat or round. I don't know but it could be."

Green was joking, I keep telling myself. And then I Google: "How can I control my nightmares?"