Kyrie Irving, the All Star, superstar point guard of 2016 NBA champion Cleveland Cavaliers, doesn't believe the world is round like the Spalding basketballs he dribbles at the ongoing NBA games, but is as flat at the pizzas he chows down.
Irving the Flat Earther is storming social media and has elicited tons of comments, mostly unflattering.
The issue of the long discredited theory of a flat earth surfaced during a podcast in which Irving gave his views on a range of scientific topics. Nothing earthshaking until he opened his mouth about being a flat earther.
"This is not even a conspiracy theory," said Irving during the podcast.
"The Earth is flat. What I've been taught is that the earth is round. But if you really think about it from a landscape of the way we travel, the way we move and the fact that, can you really think of us rotating around the sun and all planets aligned, rotating in specific dates, being perpendicular with what's going on with these planets?"
Irving argues the evidence is clear the Earth is well and truly flat.
"It's right in front of our faces. I'm telling you. It's right in front of our faces. They lie to us (referring to scientists)."
Irving defended the pseudoscience he subscribes to, however, and said "the truth is right there. You've just got to go searching for it."
When asked if he'd ever seen a picture of a round Earth such as those taken by satellites, Irving replied:
"I've seen a lot of things that my educational system has said was real and turned out to be completely fake so I don't mind going against the grain in terms of my thoughts and what I believe."
And after he got all those nasty tweets, Irving was still optimistic his worldview is the right one.
"I think people should do their own research, man. Then hopefully they will either back my belief or they will throw it in the water."
Irving said he also believes in aliens.