Less than a week ago. Somehow, someway, that obnoxiously cocky quote made its rounds less than a week ago, so don't you dare let anybody tell you there is a limit to the speed with which life can accelerate at you...
To be fair, I get it. Shooting slumps happen. Typically not to such a historically half-blind extent for an unbelievably talented player that can absolutely embarrass almost anyone off the dribble and has unprecedented touch around the rim, but - as is the fickle nature of the sport - shooting slumps do happen. Unfortunately, I'm just of the belief that when they happen to a "basketball genius" they'd be more intellectually equipped to find other ways to positively impact the game other than just...shooting...more?
Fact is, just about the nicest thing you could say about Kyrie Irving following a series during which it appeared blood stopped flowing to his brain is that he looked to be about as much of a basketball idiot as he did to be a basketball savant. For him to be an actual basketball genius, that four game stretch of unabashed futility would have to be uncharacteristic in a way that could only be matched by a valedictorian forgetting how to read while taking the SAT's. As far as in-game intelligence is concerned, what we witnessed was legitimately the basketball equivalent of "the Earth is flat". Like, Kyrie Irving might as well have dressed up as Uncle Drew and hoped for people to blindly give an elder undeserved credit for wiseness, because literally the only reason to believe he was brilliant in comparison to every else on the court was the shameless level of pompousness in his proclamation. He might be athletically astute relative to some unqualified analysts, myself included, but stupid is as stupid does and doing the same thing over...and over...and over again only to expect a different result is the definition of insanity. The truth of the matter is that Kyrie Irving isn't even the smartest player on the team he mentally abandoned. If you put Al Horford's basketball mind in his body then he'd at least be in position to luck into a defensive stop every once in a while...
If you put Al Horford's basketball mind in his body then a rough night (...or four) from the field would just be a good excuse to exponentially up his assist average. There is absolutely nothing that Kyrie Irving is physically incapable of doing on a basketball court, so if it wasn't a mental inability to adapt then what exactly was it that had his impact senselessly fading away like his body on every routine jump shot? The only answer I can conjure up to that question is a lack of effort, leadership, and interest from a star player who punctuated a season of perpetual pissyness with a shockingly stubborn week long soiling of himself. "Who cares?" is a great question. In my opinion, "an actual genius when it comes to this game" just might have cared about being made to look so goddamn dumb while playing it for a week straight, but I'm just a stupid sports' fan so what the hell do I know?
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