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Sports Illustrated
Sports Illustrated
Sport
Robin Lundberg

Kyrie Irving Is the Key to the NBA Season: Unchecked

If the Brooklyn guard is on the court, the Nets are unbeatable.

Of course there are two parts to making a statement like this. The first has to do with talent since as James Harden said, they are that good. I didn’t need to see them blow out the Bulls to come to this conclusion, either, as there is no need to complicate things when it comes to the Big Three.

The Nets have three of the top-10 players in the league on their roster, all who require extra attention from defenses, making them absolutely unguardable collectively. Which makes every other player’s job easier and allows for at least one superstar to be on the court at all times. 

If they aren’t able to win it all with Kevin Durant, Harden and Kyrie all suiting up then that’s an indictment of them. 

Of course the complication there is Kyrie’s part-time status. The easiest and obvious solution to that has always been for him to get vaccinated. However, I think it is at least fair to point out that the rules prohibiting him from playing at home don’t exactly make total sense. He was permitted to play in Chicago but couldn’t have attended the game. And visiting unvaccinated players can play in New York, but Kyrie can’t. 

The Warriors, Suns, Bucks and every other contender better hope that situation doesn’t get resolved, because like Kyrie right now, with him in the lineup, the rest of the league has no shot.

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