Kyrie Irving: Why one series does not define a career

Kyrie Irving will take the hit for the Boston Celtics’ early playoff exit, but this one series should not define his career

Kyrie Irving is one of the NBA’s best players of the last decade, but many people will write all of that stuff off and use the Boston Celtics’ second-round collapse to define his career.

There isn’t a single person who should be getting all of the blame. Sure you’ll see Stephen A. Smith and Max Kellerman blame Kyrie Irving, but they have no idea what they’re talking about. Kellerman has no business talking about anything except for boxing and was absolutely embarrassed by Jay Williams – someone who played the game and continues to teach it to the youth while being a college basketball commentator – on his own show earlier this week.

I saw that clip and laughed. Why? These guys and so many others are going to be watched by many of you in the coming days, weeks, and even months and will criticize his poor percentages and his lack of passing in the second round.

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They’ll also tell you that Kyrie Irving is going to New York and that it’s a done deal. These are a couple of the hundreds of guys on ESPN criticizing the greatest players of all time and claiming that one series defines a player’s career in any sport. That could be some of the biggest nonsense I have ever heard of.

Let me explain.

If you’re holding the 2011 Finals against LeBron’s case for being the greatest basketball player of all time, you’re crazy and bias. If you think Ted Williams isn’t the greatest hitter of all time because he took time off to serve in the military, you have no idea what you’re talking about. Both of these athletes are in tier-one of their respective sports’ all-time list.

Let me say this again: one series does not define an athlete’s career.

We all love this game more than anything else, the exceptions being family and a few friends (or is that just me?). When a superstar struggles, you hate to see it no matter what team you’re repping. We love to see greatness, and nothing is more awesome than being able to watch someone build a legacy in front of your eyes. For me, a 19-year old, I’ve watched it happen to LeBron James, Kevin Durant, Carmelo Anthony, Dwyane Wade, and Tim Duncan, amongst others.

All of these future Hall of Farmers have been criticized at some point during their career. It hasn’t been a matter of if they had a good season or not due to one bad series. No, it’s been far more severe. People will seriously question just how immortal one’s legacy is if he fails to live up to the hype.

LeBron James’ absence in this past year’s playoffs has now become an argument for him not being better than Jordan. Whether he’s above or below Jordan in your all-time rankings doesn’t matter if you’re using the last nine months to define a career that only Jordan’s compares to.

Enjoy greatness because it won’t last forever.

I learned that shortly after watching KD’s Warriors debut. I was one of those people who questioned his legacy and who said some things about him that I regret. I labeled him as a “sellout” and someone who ran away from a franchise that he helped build literally from the ground-up. Three years later, those thoughts are behind me and I enjoy watching him play the game more than most do.

He made the best decision for himself to excel in his career. And even though some respected it and others still don’t, it doesn’t matter: his scoring titles speak for themselves and his mind-boggling efficiency are simply meager considering the talent he’s been surrounded with.

Looking at those who deserve better: the conversation begins and ends with Carmelo Anthony. We shouldn’t be picking and choosing different playoff series’ of his career and critique the stereotype of him being a ballhog in the locker room or cancer away from it.

Melo is 19th on the all-time scoring list and after a bad stint with the Rockets and Thunder, can’t seem to find a job anywhere. I hope a team looks to him to be the third option because he’s still able to score the basketball better than the majority of the players in this league today.

Simply put: Melo deserves better.

And then there are the ones that not many people remember. I was too young for The Fundamental, but I saw him at the end of his career, battling the early 2010s Miami Heat during my summer breaks. Tim Duncan, a future first-ballot Hall of Famer, is arguably the greatest power forward of all-time. But it wasn’t the battles with the Heat that made fans define his career. Over the course of his 18-year career, Duncan put up remarkable numbers, averaging at least 18 points and 10 rebound for his first dozen seasons is what makes him so good.

He’s a five-time champion with multiple regular season and Finals MVP’s. Sure I’m too young to see Tim Duncan in his prime, but I’ve never heard of one of those playoff series’ defining his career. Let’s not start doing that now.

Lastly, and most recently of the five, Dwyane Wade. Flash arguably had one of the most fun careers a player has had in NBA history: 13 All-Star selections, an MVP, a Finals MVP, stints with two of the ten most dominant talents the league has ever seen (Shaquille O’Neal after the Kobe drama and LeBron James with the Big Three).

We can’t point to the knee injuries and say that he doesn’t deserve to be recognized for an immaculate career because of that. And we can’t look back at the last Finals the Heat franchise will see for a while and say that because they were blown out by the Spurs, Dwyane Wade didn’t have the ability to play in crunch time when his team needed it most.

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All five of these exceptional basketball players have a rare talent, which is what Kyrie Irving possesses. His first playoffs as a Celtic ended much sooner than anyone expected them too, and that changes his legacy?

Let’s take a step back and look at that statement; Kyrie Irving’s career won’t be defined by the last two weeks of the Celtics season, just like the legends above shouldn’t be for a bad stretch in theirs.

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