Inside the high-wire decision to suspend Brooklyn Nets star Kyrie Irving

For several agonizing days, the pleas had grown into a crescendo for Brooklyn Nets owner Joe Tsai to punish star guard Kyrie Irving. The most important and invested voices in his orbit -- including NBA commissioner Adam Silver and Nets general manager Sean Marks -- had sided with a broad swath of the public in believing that Irving's refusal to condemn the contents of an antisemitic film he shared on his social media had left the Nets no choice but to suspend him, sources told ESPN.

Against the backdrop of calls for swift action, sources said Tsai had resisted and insisted on taking time to educate Irving on the horrors of antisemitism. He'd enlisted the counsel of the Anti-Defamation…