The Milwaukee Bucks trolled Kyrie Irving after he mistakenly thought their throwback-painted court was the real thing

Maddie Meyer/Getty Images

• The Milwaukee Bucks and Boston Celtics will play on Thursday night in a throwback game that will also include a throwback-themed court.
• Celtics guard Kyrie Irving was suspicious of the court, and seemed to have thought that it was the actual court the Bucks used in the ’80s, rather than a replica.
• The Bucks’ social media team had a bit of fun with the moment, assuring Irving that the court was brand new.

When it was announced that the Milwaukee Bucks would be bringing back their “Mecca” court design for Thursday night’s game against the Boston Celtics, many basketball fans were filled with a combination and excitement and nostalgic warmth.

But now that the court is a reality, there’s at least one player who isn’t sure the experiment is worth the risk.

The Celtics’ All-Star point guard Kyrie Irving, who made headlines last season when revealed that he believes the Earth is flat, expressed a bit of distrust for the throwback court ahead of the game.

“I’m all about safety,” Irving told reporters during the team’s shootaround Thursday morning, according to Boston.com.

“We’ll see how it is on my knees, see how it is on everyone’s bodies,” he said. “I know that this is a pretty older court. It looks like it’s freshly painted as well. I’m just going to do my assessment and go from there.”

The comment seems to imply that Irving missed an important bit of information — that the court was not literally the same court that the Bucks used to play on, but rather a replica made with the same wood and painted to match the original design.

Yet even when told that the court is new, Irving wasn’t convinced.

“Yeah, it took me three steps to realize that this is not the same NBA court that I’m used to playing on,” he said.

In response, the Bucks’ official Twitter account lightly trolled Irving, releasing a video that details the creation of the court and reassuring those that might doubt it that it is indeed a brand new floor.

It’s likely that this was a simple misunderstanding on Irving’s part, and the Bucks were just having a bit of fun with the moment, but it’s also possible that he will later claim that the whole thing was a “social experiment,” as he did with his flat Earth comments earlier in the year.