By COLE ARCHER
If you have even the slightest interest in sports or better yet, you possess an Instagram account, you know that J.R. Smith has forever placed himself in basketball infamy.
Make that pop culture infamy.
The memes were everywhere. Everyone has their favorite. (Mine has to be the one that simultaneously dragged Drake’s baby mama drama in the mix.)
People that do not even keep up with basketball were forced to see the memes on their feed as well and whether they really wanted to or not, they formulated the likely opinion that well – J.R. Smith is the worst player in the NBA.
All of us basketball fans know of course that’s not true.
Is he LeBron James? HA
Is he even in the tier of J.J. Reddick? Probably not.
J.R. Smith is a solid player that can give you streaky performances and have plays just like this and we all either love him or hate him for it.
But we already knew that!
Like many, I put him in the same category as the Warriors’ Nick Young. They are both two guys that are probably more popular than their skill set warrants them to be (even if J.R. does have a 6th man of the year award to his name). Their personalities are just so necessary for the game and this play could not have happened to anyone better than J.R. making this whole situation just that much better.
Even with it being the most head-scratching play I have ever witnessed due to the circumstance of the game and its stakes, it should not be a surprise knowing who it comes from. With J.R. comes the step back threes and the plays like these. The Cavs GM knows that. We all know that.
Contrary to Twitter and Instagram, J.R. Smith did not miss the free throw putting them in that situation in the first place. He also was not of the six Cavalier players that did not even score double digits that night. So, if we are to ridicule J.R. let us not forget to publicly shame George Hill, Kyle Korver, Tristan Thompson, Jordan Clarkson, Larry Nance, and Jeff Green.
J.R. could make this same play in the middle of the regular season and no one would really care. Even Smith would probably brush that one-off. The game’s circumstance can make the play’s impact worse, but it cannot make J.R. Smith a worse player if it happened in the Finals or if it happened in game 47 of the regular season.
We can have our fun with the J.R. Smith situation just as Warriors fans did when they gave him his M.V.P. chants, but let’s remember basketball is a team effort. That is why LeBron doesn’t have 8 rings by now anyways right? I digress.
Categories: NBA
Sportschasers 
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