The Standing Rock Sioux Reservation straddles the border between North Dakota and South Dakota, in an area of ​​the United States where there are hills, dust, and not much else. Getting there is not an easy journey, even for a wealthy man like Kyrie Irving.

The nearest airport is at Bismarck, about an hour north, and there are no streetlights to light the road in either direction. One turn off the main highway, and the road becomes gravel and dirt.

The center of the reservation is a town called Fort Yates, which sits on a small island in the river. On the side of the road into town are stockpiles, run-down properties with graffiti on the walls and dogs roaming between yards. Next to a field, on the path, is a boulder set on a concrete slab, with a bronze plaque marking the spot where High Chief Sitting Bull was buried.

The Prairie Knights Casino and Resort, which backs onto the Missouri River and sits atop an embankment overlooking the lonely highway below, just north of Fort Yates, is owned by the Standing Rock Tribe, and a splinter blindingly shines on the facade as the sun sets over the Dakota plains. Getting out of the casino at dusk requires sunglasses or a good sized forearm to block the rays. Kyrie Irving hosted a major dinner there in August.

Irving, 29, is the star basketball player whose refusal to comply with New York City’s mandate requiring a COVID-19 vaccine has already cost him millions of dollars and, if something does not change, a potential championship for his team. But he was also the one who said that the Earth was “flat”. Who got the divorce from LeBron James he asked for. who messed up the