Kyrie Irving: The Deserving and Undeserving All-Star

Kyrie Irving is back in the lineup and he looks better than ever. He is coming off of back to back dominating performances that made opposing defenders look utterly foolish.

On Wednesday night Kyrie Irving broke the will of the Washington Wizards by hanging 32 points with 19 of them coming in the fourth quarter. It was truly a performance that only an all-star is capable of having.

If All-Star voting ended today, Irving would be the starting point guard in the Eastern Conference despite only playing in seven games this season. That would put him starting over other guards such as Kyle Lowry, Jimmy Butler, John Wall, and DeMar DeRozan who have played a majority of the season. There is no denying that Irving is an all-star talented player, but the problem for many people outside of Northeast Ohio is whether he deserves that honor over guys who have played most of the season.

John Wall and the Washington Wizards have been outspoken on this issue. Wall told CSNmidatlantic.com that Kyrie being ahead of him in All-Star voting was a joke. Wall went on to say, “I played (awful) the first month and a half, but I still was averaging like 16 [points] and eight [assists]. That’s not bad numbers. I guess it’s the (team’s) record.” The Wizards’ in-game entertainment crew piggybacked that idea by making a video that played during a timeout on the floor making fun of the idea that Irving would make the team over Wall.

Many Cavalier players took exception to this including J.R. Smith who told cleveland.com, “Nah, we didn’t like it as a team. We didn’t like it at all.”

It’s natural that the Kyrie’s teammates stood up for them. That’s what they are supposed to do and it would be wrong if they didn’t, but could John Wall actually have a valid point here?

If being a member of the All-Star team is about rewarding the players who have had the best seasons thus far then there is no way Irving deserves to be on the team since he has only played in seven games. Players such as Derozan, Butler, and Lowry deserve it over Irving. Actually, if we’re going off of that criteria you could make a compelling case that Mo Williams deserves to be on the all-star team more than Irving does.

However, going off who has had a better season and rewarding them for that is more of the criteria for selecting the All-NBA team rather than the All-Star team. Just look at the All-Star voting now. Kobe Bryant is one of the greatest players to ever lace them up, but he is a shell of his former self. Bryant’s play this year doesn’t deserve any all-star game considerations, but he is leading all players in all-star voting.

Why is nobody complaining about Kobe being on the All-Star team? If being selected to the All-Star team was about who is having the best season right now then there would be many people complaining about Bryant being on the team. But that’s not what the game is about. The All-Star game is about being a show for the fans, it’s not about recognizing who is having the best season. That is what after the season awards are for.

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The All-Star game is nothing more than a show for the fans, nothing more, nothing less. We want to see the best players in the world share the court for 48 minutes without anyone playing defense until the final 2 minutes. While we all can understand where Wall’s complaint is coming from, nobody should take it too seriously.

Tristan Thompson summed it up best when he told cleveland.com after the game that, “Fans are going to vote for whoever they want to see.”

Thompson is right. The fans are going to vote for who they want to see, and it appears the fans want to see Kyrie Irving. Just that alone means Irving deserves to be out there, even if he’s only played in seven games.

We are a little biased as Cavs fans, but do you think Kyrie Irving deserves to be in the All-Star Game?