Kyrie Irving‘s still a member of the Cleveland Cavaliers and he might be for a few more months at least, but it’s good to think ahead. When Irving inevitably leaves Cleveland, how will fans react? Where will they congregate to take out their anger on Irving for breaking up the Cavs earlier than anyone expected?
Burning jerseys has, for some reason, become a tradition of angry sports fans after a player scorns their franchise in free agency — or in this case, a trade request. Jazz fans torched Gordon Hayward jerseys when he chose Boston over Utah, and, most famously, Cleveland fans burned their LeBron jerseys in anger following The Decision to go to Miami in 2010.
Cleveland.com knows its readers need answers to those questions above and also know that it is a mortal lock that Kyrie jerseys will get burned sooner or later. That’s why they put together a very funny, tongue-in-cheek video showing the best places to burn your Kyrie Irving jersey once the trade inevitably goes down.
“As you probably heard by now Kyrie Irving has been asked to be traded to a different team where he can be the center of attention,” said Kris Wernowsky from Cleveland.com. “And if you know anything about Cleveland it means one thing: somebody’s going to set his jersey on fire.”
The video, however, is a sartorial take on burning jerseys of former players. It takes some shots at fans overreacting to Irving’s demand and how the same fans that once hated LeBron embraced him when he came back. It also got in a dig at Cavs owner Dan Gilbert when they said to burn it at Gilbert’s house.
“What better way to honor our team’s glorious leader than to destroy something that works perfectly fine?” the video asks.
It’s well done and some extremely good content that acknowledges how ridiculous burning a jersey is, even if it’s well within your right as a fan that paid good money for said jersey to do so.
