Celtics Guard Jrue Holiday Unintentionally Sparks Kyrie Irving Rant

Kyrie Irving’s never-ending beef with the media came back to life when Boston Celtics guard Jrue Holiday was ranked above Uncle Drew.

ESPN released its latest player rankings list for the 2023-24 NBA season, and snubbed Irving pretty harshly. Whether the move was out of spite, disingenuousness or just flat-out wrong, Irving clearly took issue with it. The Dallas Mavericks guard and former Celtic himself was ranked No. 34 while Holiday was ranked at No. 26.

This prompted an online response from Irving just hours later.

“Who. … cares. I Never will. Rankings don’t mean a damn thing in the league, especially not from ESPN or any of these other media platforms. Majority of the analysts are not credible sources in my eyes and I don’t respect them or their opinions,” Irving commented Wednesday on an Instagram post.

Granted, Holiday’s only advantage — defense — isn’t necessarily enough to trump Irving’s Hall-of-Fame-caliber offensive skillset. There isn’t a better ball-handler or finisher at the rim than Irving in the league, questioning the exact motive behind ESPN’s rankings — that’s fair.

On the other hand, like Irving wrote to begin the rant, who cares?

Player rankings and video game ratings are the most useless conversations that, for some reason, hold enough shelf life to return the following season. For a group of “not credible” members of the media, their takes never fail to hit Irving’s radar and — in many cases — trigger a response.

Both All-Star guards will get to square off for the first time when the Mavericks host the Celtics on Jan. 22 next year.