Kyrie Irving —2 slices (and a nibble, from someone else’s slice) of the blame pie
Right off the bat, it’s not Kyrie Irving’s fault he played for one of the seven NBA teams that didn’t let unvaccinated home players play.
Despite all the vaccine stuff this season, Kyrie has been a distraction literally everywhere he has played, pre-dating the vaccines, and even his flat-Earth theories.
Focusing just on the floor, his poor and inconsistent play alone warrants at least a full slice of the pie. When he’s on, he’s mesmerizing, but he is wildly inconsistent, as likely to drop 40 on a to-die-for highlight reel as go 3-15.
And his defense has always been bad. But he can’t get much more than a quarter of the pie because the front office and his buddy Durant tacitly empowered him to at least a small degree in all his on and off-court vices. This team needs an exorcism!