Is Kyrie Irving one of the 75 all-time greatest basketball players who ever played in the NBA, as he stated he considers himself on his podcast with Kevin Durant?

No, Kyrie is not a top 75 all time player and neither is Klay Thompson. Sometimes I think modern players and modern fans suffer from too much recency bias. Modern players win a championship as a top 2 player, make an All-NBA team and think oh thats it im top 75 ALL time. When I bet they have very little knowledge of NBA history at all.

I already did a video on who I felt was snubbed from the NBA top 75 – players like Artis Gilmore, Dwight Howard, Pau Gasol, Tony Parker, Dan Issel, Dennis Johnson, Connie Hawkins, Spencer Haywood, Dikembe Mutombo, George McGinnis, Adrian Dantley and Mel Daniels.

For modern fans here’s some perspective;

Artis Gilmore won 1 MVP, 1 Championship, 1 Finals MVP, had 25k points and 16k rebounds and he wasn’t in the top 75
Mel Daniels had 2 MVPs and 3 Championships and averaged 15 RPG for his career and wasn’t in top 75
George McGinnis had 1 MVP, 2 Championships, 1 Finals MVP and averaged 20/11/4 for his career, and wasn’t top 75
Dwight Howard was 8x All-NBA, 6x All-Def, 3x DPOY, 5x Rebounding titles and wasn’t in top 75
Dennis Johnson was a 9x All-Def, 3x Champ, 1x Finals MVP and wasn’t top 75

These guys were ALL snubbed from the top 75 because the NBA felt that they weren’t worthy to make the list. I also felt that the NBA put in guys in the top 75 that probably didn’t deserve to be in there like Pete Maravich, Earl Monroe, Dave Bing, Lenny Wilkens, Reggie Miller, Dame Lillard, Bill Sharman and Robert Parish.

Now look at Kyrie Irving and Klay Thompson’s achievements:

Kyrie is a 7x All-Star, 3x All-NBA and 1x Champ, averages 23/4/6
Klay is a 5x All-Star, 2x All-NBA and 3x Champ, averages 19/3/2

These are all good credentials for Hall of Fame. But top 75 all time?

Here are some other names of guys not in my video who also didn’t make top 75: Bernard King, Alex English, Sidney Moncrief, Joe Dumars, Bob Lanier, Alonzo Mourning, Tracy McGrady, Roger Brown, Tom Heinsohn, Zelmo Beaty, etc I mean they all have better cases to be in there than Kyrie and Klay. Now does Kyrie have a better case than some of the guys in there? Yes. Kyrie is a better player than Dave Bing (who never made it past the first round) and Pete Maravich (who never made it past the first round) and Earl Monroe (who wasn’t a top 3 player on his champ team and only 1x All-NBA). But overall I felt there’s more deserving players that got snubbed than Kyrie.