Kyrie Irving

[Jon]

If "right now" is in the context of regular season games, and regular season defense, sure. Curry is the type of player who murders you if you have anything less than high defensive intensity.

But playoff basketball is different because defenses tighten up. That's particularly true with ball-denial, and that's how you slow down Curry. Get physical and annoy the shit out of him because his lack of physicality is his only weakness offensively.

Still much rather have LBJ come playoffs because he thrives in a more physical game, and is still far better than Curry defensively.

That hasn't changed.

And playoff games have been decided because James saw no option other than to do everything himself, the opponent dared him to shoot, and because of the fatigue of trying to do so much his jump shots were way off. Opponents have also gotten physical with James and at times frustrated him or dinged him up enough to slow him down because they can actually touch him.

Would I trade James for Steph? No. I would not; but we should still recognize what he's doing this season, not what theoretically might happen.

 

[Unbiased Expert]

Country?

Fairly certain Brits throw Motov cocktails at each other while cheering their teams toward higher rankings and Germans were so infatuated with rankings that they agreed to murder several million people to climb up a few rungs.

You are right that soccer focused countries don't care about whether they win the World Cup or keep track of their highest paid players and national league standings and top scorers.

You're confusing real competition with imaginary comparison of athletes from different times. In "soccer focused countries" those what-if disputes are mostly between kids, in US there is a top list for presidents and for everyone else.

 

[Frank Reynolds]

Man do we need this dude back in the worst way. It's games like last night vs the Hornets where we ended up squeezing out a win, but with Irving we might have won that game by halftime.

It's going to take a slight adjustment, but Irving and Shumpert are going to make this team whole.

Say Irving adds 10 extra points to our cumulative point totals.

Say Shumpert subtracts 10 points away from their point totals.

That's a 20 point swing in these games. That's undefeated right now, if you ask me.

Not even to mention that Irving is going to defend better than Mo Williams. You don't want Mo to be a primary defender, you want him with the bench mob coming in and dropping 10-15 efficient points.

Then you turn to Dellavadova, who is a fucking animal of a basketball player, quickly becoming my favorite Cavalier.

You have Delly who never turns the ball over, leads the NBA in alley-oops thrown.....

I'm just sick of watching this team we currently have. It's not indicative of the real squad. We might be one month into the season; but we haven't laid eyes on our true team yet. The Warriors already see what their complete team looks like. We haven't had that yet.

Blatt is going to tailor some interesting lineups because of our flexibility and depth. How luxurious is it to have TT and Love as your rebounding beasts? How nice is it to turn to Varejao for 10-15 really productive minutes? How nice is it to throw Delly in to frustrate the fuck out of someone? Or, how nice is it going to be with LeBron, Mo, Kyrie, JR and Love on the court? James is going to perform surgery on the league with that lineup. His 4 shooter lineups with the Heat destroyed teams.

The best is still yet to come, we really haven't seen anything yet.

 

[Goodbyehorses]

We. Are. Fine. Health is our ONLY concern. Sit him for a while longer, then only play him to keep him fresh. I'd like to see even less minutes for Love and LeBron.

 

[Otsego Mar]

Shaq is one of the most incomplete superstars of all time. His special move on offense was back his ass into the defender and crush it on him. The rest of his offense was limited to weak ass hooks.

Defensively, he was pretty damn good one on one and at protecting the rim, but completely useless pick and roll.

Thing is, he was so effective at his offensive move that he was absolutely unstoppable.

He was so effective because he was as big and powerful as a truck.

 

[Otsego Mar]

I thought this thread was about Kyrie?

 

[The Oi]

You're confusing real competition with imaginary comparison of athletes from different times. In "soccer focused countries" those what-if disputes are mostly between kids, in US there is a top list for presidents and for everyone else.

Do other countries not rank things?

Here's Sweden ranking it's leaders in terms of power:
http://www.thelocal.se/20101204/30608

Here's Russia ranking it's colleges
http://russia-insider.com/en/russian-universities-climb-world-rankings-moscow-state/ri9783

 

[Crosby_Cavs]

FFS this is thread about Kyrie, where are mods?!

 

[Otsego Mar]

FFS this is thread about Kyrie, where are mods?!

The mods are missing....just like Kyrie.

 

[Zeus69]

Why is this country so obsessed with rankings?

Of the 15 posts in this thread so far today, I'd rank yours as my 4th favorite.

 

[The Human Q-Tip]

Why is this country so obsessed with rankings?

Because we're not a bunch of participation-trophy obsessed losers.

https://youtu.be/v-gwjJ_NXKU

 

[cavsfever]

Shaq is one of the most incomplete superstars of all time. His special move on offense was back his ass into the defender and crush it on him. The rest of his offense was limited to weak ass hooks.

Defensively, he was pretty damn good one on one and at protecting the rim, but completely useless pick and roll defender
Thing is, he was so effective at his offensive move that he was absolutely unstoppable.

That is Old Shaq you are talking about. The young Shaq was really skilled for his size. He was an excellent passer; his assist numbers were at least as good and arguably better than Kevin Love's. Back when he used to be able to elevate that hook wasn't weak. And in his early years he could actually run the floor.

 

[bronko]

Having 600 page threads on each player is ridiculous. The moderators should clear the boards and start over.

 

[Otsego Mar]

Having 600 page threads on each player is ridiculous. The moderators should clear the boards and start over.

See you when we reach 600 lol.

 

[theSwayze]

Having 600 page threads on each player is ridiculous. The moderators should clear the boards and start over.

No way! One thread for every Cav for forever. We could get a sidebar graveyard of all past Cavs players threads and how many pages they got to before leaving the team. I for one think knowing whether Ricky Davis or Waiters got more pages of posts is totally relevant almost everyday.