Kyrie Irving's latest destructive behavior cannot be overlooked because of his talent

The NBA needs to make it clear that hate will not be tolerated, whether from team owners -- or its players

Many things define Kyrie Irving. But few are as impactful, on and off the court, as his utter lack of accountability and self-examination. "You guys come in here and make up this powerful influence that I have over ... 'You, you cannot post that.' Why not? Why not? Everybody post everything else. You saw the word n— going up on Twitter, right? I don't hear uproar on that. I'm not here to be divisive on what's going on on this or that, I'm not comparing Jews to Blacks. I'm not comparing white to black; I'm not doing that. That conversation is dismissive, and it constantly revolves around the rhetoric of who are the chosen people of God. And I'm not here to argue over a person, or culture, or religion on what they believe. Nah, this is what is here. It's on a public platform. Did I do anything illegal?"

That's been true in the past in a variety of ways, even before the Brooklyn Nets star posted an antisemetic documentary to his 4.6 million Twitter followers Thursday, or after he played the victim at a post-game press conference Saturday night during which he should have simply said, "I was wrong."

There are many previous examples of Kyrie's self-regard eclipsing the realities and people around him: Running from LeBron James' Cleveland Cavaliers team and then, a few years later, taking shots at LeBron's status as a star. Joining a Boston Celtics squad that had just come off an Eastern Conference finals and saying, and acting as if, that team knew nothing about winning. Proclaiming, before this failed-Nets experiment, that Brooklyn didn't really have a head coach, Steve Nash notwithstanding. No-showing here and there when it served his purposes despite playing a team sport. Pushing a flat-earth theory and deriding those who'd say that, well, actually, our earth is quite round.