Ayesha Curry regrets saying the NBA Finals was 'rigged'
It’s hard to remember now that they’re the unmitigated victors of the NBA offseason, but the Golden State Warriors ended their season in shame and disappointment. Winning a league record 88 games over the regular season and playoffs did not keep the Warriors from dropping the NBA Finals to the Cleveland Cavaliers, blowing a 3-1 lead with two losses at Oracle Arena. NBA fans and analysts quickly questioned the resolve of the group, and it’s fair to say that many participants’ reputations have been diminished even if Golden State returns to championship form with Kevin Durant in uniform next season.
The bad vibes extended beyond those who took part on the court, as well. Ayesha Curry, wife of Warriors superstar and back-to-back NBA MVP Stephen Curry, got serious attention when, at the end of the Game 6 loss in Cleveland, tweeted that the whole thing was “rigged for money.” Curry’s words came across as ill-considered at best, childish on balance, and entitled at worst. It was not the best look for her or the Curry family.
In the midst of promoting her new cookbook, Curry spoke on that tweet and her approach to social media in general. It turns out she does not look back on the moment very fondly. From Shay Spence for People.com:
Although cooking has been a hobby for her for most of her life, it was Steph who first encouraged her to enter the digital sphere and start a food blog — which she’s now parlayed into an upcoming cookbook, The Seasoned Life, and a Cooking Channel show. “When we started on social media, we just thought it was the cool thing to do,” she says. “We didn’t know it would turn into this big beast of a thing. I think now that it’s turned into this whole ‘brand’ thing, I want to make sure I stay transparent and honest and true to myself.”
This openness has given her a relatable quality that’s earned admiration from fans, but it’s also landed her in hot water — most recently when she called the NBA “rigged” on Twitter following the Golden State Warriors’ loss to the Cleveland Cavaliers in game 6 of the finals. “I was just a fan in that moment so I didn’t think about the ramifications,” she says. “I regret the way that I voiced how hurt I was. I felt hurt for [Steph], and I didn’t mean to offend anybody. Obviously, what I wrote is not what I think about what he does for a living.”
Through everything, Steph has maintained his unwavering support for his wife. “I know her intentions. I know where she was coming from,” he tells PEOPLE. “You’re not going to win any battles on Twitter, so I tell her, ‘Keep being you. Keep doing what you’re doing. Don’t worry about what people are going to say. No matter who you are, they are going to try to find something to try to get under your skin and make you be somebody you’re not.’”
Still, she admits she does let the negativity get the best of her at times. “Since all this hoopla has happened, I have been a victim of reading the comments,” she says. “It hurts my feelings because I didn’t intend to hurt anybody. I apologized for it, and I feel like people should move on. There’s a lot more serious things going on in the world.”
Many fans can probably identify with the sensation of being upset after a big-game loss, especially if they perceived bad refereeing to be responsible. Of course, most fans are not married to an MVP who performed below expectations in that series. The reaction to Curry’s tweet wasn’t just about the sentiment — it was partially a push back against a narrative that sold the family as approachable, humble, and “normal” in a way that superstar athletes, their wives, and kids usually aren’t. That image was always going to be impossible for reality to match, because any human is going to have lapses of judgment and public bouts of frustration.
None of that means that Ayesha isn’t entitled to an opinion or the occasional outburst. For that matter, the fan reaction to her tweet was often worse than the first offense — she received lots of hateful, mean-spirited responses and was essentially told to keep quiet and stay in the kitchen by more than one prominent national commentator. To her credit, she realized that the tweet was silly and deleted it with apology shortly after Game 6. (That apology also included an explanation that her father had been racially profiled by NBA security, a point that is conspicuously absent from the frictionless world of this People profile.)
It appears that Curry would like to put the incident behind her, and it’s hard to blame her. But it would also be a shame if that process precluded her from getting upset on social media over anything, including “the more serious things going on in the world” but also her in-the-moment take on her husband’s basketball games. Those reactions are ultimately just as true to the real Ayesha as her cookbook recipes and just announced Food Network show. People who allow themselves to make mistakes in public often end up much more likable in the end.
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Eric Freeman is a writer for Ball Don’t Lie on Yahoo Sports. Have a tip? Email him at efreeman_ysports@yahoo.com or follow him on Twitter!
