Kyrie Irving knows absolutely everything about the angles of the backboard on a basketball net. Throughout Irving's career he's been viewed as one of the greatest finisher's at the rim in the league, as he's consistently shown that he's able to score on a layup from all angles, putting varying degrees of spin so that no matter where he puts the ball, it ends up in the hoop.

However, when it comes to Irving's knowledge in Astronomy...no one's quite sure where he stands. Earlier in 2017, Irving stated that he believes the world is flat, a statement he partially retracted later on, saying that the only reason he expressed that opinion was as a form of "exploitation tactic." To his credit, he also made fun of the whole thing in the latest Nike commercial for his shoe line.

Still, no one is quite sure if Irving really is a flat earther or not, but Bill Nye the Science Guy is convinced enough that he targeted the Celtics guard in a recent rant on the topic. Speaking with Complex News, Nye was asked about what he thinks about flat earthers, and he didn't hold back.

(Skip to 1:46)
 

 

“They think about basketball defense — complicated business. They think about their statistics constantly. They’re constantly evaluating their shooting percentage, their field goal percentage. They get to the court early, and they dribble the ball to see which parts of the court are kind of dead compared to the lively parts because somebody spilled a soft drink five years ago that didn’t get wiped up fast enough. Yes, they think about that. 

 

“Yet, they’re somehow able to look at pictures of the Earth from space. They’re somehow able to accept weather forecasting from satellites. They’re able to listen to CNN from the other side of the world bounced off spacecrafts, and yet conclude that, since they can’t see Florida from Manhattan, the world must be flat or some freaking thing. It’s just weird! It’s the 21st century, people! People navigated around the world using the stars with full knowledge that the Earth was a ball seven or eight centuries ago. This is not a new idea, people! If only there were 60 people who could just give the whistling backhand. Hey, you wanna fresh one? Then they’d shut up, and we could move on.”

 

Whether or not Irving personally believes if the world is flat really isn't all that important, as he definitely has the right to believe whatever he'd like. However, it is concerning when impressionable students begin to disregard the knowledge of their science teachers simply because their favourite basketball teacher believes the earth to be flat. An issue that bothers Nye as well, which he went over in detail back in February.

 

 

 (H/T: FTW USA Today)