There haven’t been many breakups between a team and a player in the NBA that were as messy as the split between Kyrie Irving and the Cleveland Cavaliers. Irving’s career followed a strange path in Cleveland, as he went from anointed savior of the franchise, to a talented scorer who couldn’t lead the team to the postseason, to a dynamite-but-flawed second banana with the best player on earth, to an outcast after a trade request blindsided everyone in the franchise.
Now, Irving has the position on a team that he so desperately craved: He is the undisputed man in Boston, the superstar who has a team built around him, and the center of attention for a team that could repeat as the squad with the conference’s best record this year. It was a lengthy process that led to his eventual trade to Beantown, one that was full of twists and turns that made it seem like Irving’s relationship with the franchise became really acrimonious towards the end.
The craziest part was how this breakup seemed to play out on social media, especially with regard to LeBron James. There was an unfollowing on Instagram. There were multiple posts on the web that seemed like shots were being lobbed. It was all incredibly silly.
We decided to check in on Irving’s Twitter account and get a sense for whether he decided to go all #PETTYSZN on his former teammates. Irving follows 779 people, and we wanted to know how many of them are players on the current Cavs roster. Here was our methodology:
- Scroll to the bottom of his followers list.
- Do a command+F search for everyone on the Cavaliers current roster based on their name and Twitter handle.
- Cross-reference these findings with the website doesfollow.com, which is a tremendous resource if you are trying to see the fallout from an argument between two high schoolers or a long and drawn out trade process that included a bunch of silly jabs on social media, which are, in essence, the same thing.
After hours upon hours* of painstaking research, these are our findings. “NO” means Irving does not follow them, “YES” means he does.
* — Fine, it was like 20 minutes.
Guys With Whom Irving Never Played
Jose Calderon — NO
Jae Crowder — NO
Jeff Green — NO
John Holland — NO
Cedi Osman — NO
Kendrick Perkins — NO
Derrick Rose — NO
Isaiah Thomas — NO
Dwyane Wade — YES
Ante Zizic — NO
Nothing here is especially stunning, save for maybe the fact that he never followed Thomas (one of the league’s superstars) or the guys who were on the team before he was traded (Calderon, Green, Osman, and Rose, who I suppose could be grouped together with Thomas as being a little curious, if you want). Additionally, he does follow Wade, which isn’t a huge surprise because the dude’s a star and one of the most followed guys in the league.
Former Teammates Not Named LeBron
Kay Felder — NO
Channing Frye — YES
Kyle Korver — YES
Kevin Love — YES
Iman Shumpert — YES
J.R. Smith — YES
Edy Tavares — NO
Tristan Thompson — YES
Again, nothing here is too stunning. He follows everyone with whom he was teammates for the most part. The two exceptions were Felder, a second-year guard who went back-and-forth between the Cavaliers and their G-League team last season, and Tavares, who joined Cleveland in April of 2017 and played in one game. If you are generally of the belief that you should follow your teammates, Irving should have given Felder a follow at the very least.
Richard Jefferson
Richard Jefferson — NO TWITTER
While he is extremely good at Snapchat, Jefferson has not crossed into the realm of Twitter yet. He doesn’t appear to have a Facebook or an Instagram, either, which means he is doing a social media version of Ron Swanson’s immortal life advice, “Never half-ass two things, whole-ass one thing.”
Other Notable Cavs People
Tyronn Lue — NO TWITTER
The Official Cavs Twitter Account — YES
Dan Gilbert — YES
Like Jefferson, it doesn’t appear that Lue is on Twitter. There is a Lue account that is followed by NBA.com’s David Aldridge, but it has never tweeted and follows no NBA people. It does, however, follow Blink-182 singer and bassist Mark Hoppus, which is nice.
Irving does, however, still follow Gilbert, who is on team follow back with his former point guard. Seeing as how Gilbert penned a silly comic sans letter the last time there was a messy divorce between Cleveland and one of its stars, I am legitimately stunned he still follows Irving. So congrats to Irving on still being followed by Gilbert, which means the Cavaliers owner holds Irving in the same regard as the account @Ravelifes.
LeBron
LeBron James — YES
So much was made about the relationship between James and Irving, even before the point guard submitted a trade request without him knowing. James seemed like he really relished having the chance to teach Irving what he needed to know to become the man in Cleveland some day, even if there were points where their relationship got a bit rocky.
While their time as teammates came to a bitter end, the two still follow one another on Twitter. It may be a while before they smash that RT button for one or the other, but seeing as how Twitter is the most important and serious thing in the world, we can take this as a sign that they’re still best friends and hold each other in the highest regard or something like that.
