Nassir Little has made himself a fixture of the Portland Trail Blazers' present and future this season by living up to Chauncey Billups' demand that he's always the hardest-working player on the floor. No one on Portland's roster comes close to matching Little's blend of all-around explosiveness and positional length. But it's his commitment to dogged edge and intensity that's helped the former blue-chip high-school recruit live up to that billing in his third NBA season.
During his deleted team's stunning 114-106 victory over the Brooklyn Nets on Monday at Moda Center, though, at least one player thought Little's competitiveness veered from unrelenting to reckless.
After the game, Kyrie Irving told reporters that Little's all-out dive for a loose ball midway through the fourth quarter was “totally unnecessary” and a “bad play” that has “no place in our game.”
"I tried to get out of the way but I just felt like it was unnecessary for him to dive that far away from the ball…. I coulda broke my ankle or done something worse, there's just no place in our game for it."
–#nets Kyrie Irving, after rolling his ankle on Nassir Little's dive pic.twitter.com/pv6ep3tEDI
— DaveEarly (@DavidEarly) January 11, 2022
Little indeed risked under-cutting Irving or landing on his ankles when he decided to layout for a ball he had scant chance of recovering.
The play wasn't dissimilar from one last March that left LeBron James with a badly sprained right ankle, after Atlanta Hawks forward Solomon Hill dove to the floor for a loose ball that the four-time MVP had already begun regathering. James, slowed by the injury during the Los Angeles Lakers' subsequent first-round playoff loss to the Phoenix Suns, even publicly called out Hill for a play he believed didn't need to be made.
The biggest difference between that incident and the one involving Little and Irving? James was re-possessing the ball when Hill lunged to the floor. Irving, on the other hand, was content to let the ball roll out of bounds, allowing Little the opportunity to be first to the floor. No foul was called on the Blazers, either.
Little responded to Irving's critique on Tuesday morning, showing respect for his opponent but doubling down on a hustle play that some considered dirty.
I would never hurt someone on purpose, I have the utmost respect for Kyrie! But y’all are delusional if you think this is a bad play, and id do it again. Idgaf what y’all talkin about https://t.co/kcChvvupG4
— Nassir Little (@2ez_nassie) January 11, 2022
Whether Little's dive was acceptable or not is up for debate. What's definitely not is that Irving could've avoided the situation altogether if he'd have laid out for the ball himself.
Two sides exist to this issue. It's hardly surprising that a role player like Little, all grit and grunt work, sits steadfastly on one of them while a superstar like Irving, who Chauncey Billups called the most skilled point guard of all time before tipoff, is on the other.
[h/t ClutchPoints' Dave Early]
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