Brooklyn Nets: Is Kyrie Irving getting into the Hall of Fame?

If you were to ask the average NBA fan if Kyrie Irving of the Brooklyn Nets would one day make the Naismith Hall of Fame, most would likely say yes. After all, here is one of the more memorable players of the last 10 years of a league that just turned 75, and no matter what, he will be remembered for hitting the defining shot of Cleveland’s 2016 championship run.

This is despite it being the crowning moment in the career of LeBron James. That has to count for something. For those who don’t quite buy into the “ringzzz” culture, his case is still strong given his many individual accolades, impressive career statistics, and having one of the best handles of all time.

Let’s play devil’s advocate and try to argue the case against the Brooklyn Nets’ Irving.

Right off the bat, it is not easy. But if we can start in one area, it is that at 30 years old and since leaving the side of James, things have not gone smoothly for Irving. Two seasons in Boston with the Celtics (127 regular season games, nine playoff appearances) and three in Brooklyn (103 regular season games, 13 playoff appearances) have not gone particularly well.

Taking out the fact that Irving has missed so much time recently because of his stance on vaccines (that’s not going to have a bearing on his case when all is said and done), it is still an inescapable fact that the Celtics had deeper playoff runs both when he was injured and still on the team, and once he had left (they came within two games of a championship this season).

It has been widely accepted that Irving was at least partly responsible for James Harden’s wanting out of Brooklyn. Additionally, Kevin Durant, the guy who has had Irving’s back since day one and who he wanted to play with, wanted to be traded this off-season.

For those keeping track, he has failed to properly form a partnership with Jayson Tatum and Jaylen Brown, and later with Harden and Durant. Irving played in this year’s playoffs, a 4-0 sweep by the Celtics in which he played in every game. Is it not concerning that, alongside a top-20 all-time player in Durant, the Brooklyn Nets and Irving went out with a whimper? Or can he turn that perception around?

If you enter the league at 19 and by 25 are in the news for the wrong reasons most of the time, that’s not exactly a bulletproof argument to be a Hall of Famer, now is it? The numbers argument is harder to make, but let’s try and give it a go.

How does Kyrie Irving stack up against other borderline Hall of Fame guards?

Irving has fewer championships than Rajon Rondo, and you can make the case that Rondo was as important to the championship the Celtics won in 2008 as Irving was to the Cavaliers in 2016. It’s not a certainty that Rondo will make the Hall of Fame, despite leaving the Celtics as a franchise legend and one that other superstars loved to play with.

He was the best player in a playoff series featuring James (2010), and it could be argued that he directly contributed to James’ leaving the Cavaliers to join the Miami Heat that summer because the Celtics won that series.

Rondo has played 346 more regular season games than Irving, and although he entered the league five years earlier and had his own issues with coaches during stops in Dallas, he became an important part of the Los Angeles Lakers winning a championship in 2020. Derrick Rose is another fascinating case study against Irving.

A player who, like Rondo, came into the league a few years before Irving, and who is also not guaranteed to make the Hall of Fame. He may not have a championship, but Rose has been a league MVP and, despite terrible injuries and luck, has rebounded to have a longer career than most thought was possible. Rose, in his prime, was as good as Irving ever was.

He was more marketable and, by all accounts, appeared content to remain with his hometown Chicago Bulls for the rest of his career. You never heard stories about him being a bad teammate (and still don’t), and despite missing so much time with injury and only entering the league three years before Irving (missed one whole season with an ACL tear, so make that two years), Rose has played 672 games to the 611 of Irving.

Irving may be a seven-time All-Star (three for Rose, four for Rondo), but at his height, Rose was averaging 25 points per game. In his prime, Rondo averaged 11.7 assists. Irving has never averaged more than 6.9 assists in a season, but credit to him, he has averaged around 25 points for the last six seasons.

So what do you think then? Is the case for Irving one that can’t be denied because of his individual accomplishments and winning a championship with James? Or, is his inability to win a championship again, despite playing with several stars over the last five seasons, reason enough to make it a discussion?