This has nothing to do with traditional roles.
Which has absolutely nothing to do with the specific point you made to which I was responding, which was:
It's a syndrome to judge a PG on his leadership skills, playmaking, and his ability to make the guys around him better? If teams don't get this from somewhere, they're going to lose a ton of games.
The point is that Cavs clearly can get that from somewhere other than Kyrie; namely, LBJ. The concerns you raise about Kyrie's supposed lack of PG skills, and the chance of losing "a ton of games" because of that, might be a lot more valid on a team that didn't have LBJ. But, we do.
And that's why I mentioned MJ and Pippen, but you can also stick Kobe in there.
MJ, Kobe, and LBJ all won multiple championships without having a "traditional PG" as the primary ballhandler/playmaker. Let's review the numbers.
In Jordan's six championship season, the "point guard" averaged
3.7,
3.2,
4.8,
2.6,
2.5, and
2.9 assists per game.
In Kobe's five championship seasons, the "PG" had
5.8,
4.4,
2.6,
3.2, and
2.5 a/g
And in LBJ's two championship seasons, the "PG" had
3.5 and
3.5 a/g.
This year, Kyrie averaged 5.2 a/g, which is more than the "PG" averaged in 12 out of the 13 seasons in which those guys won championships.
Kyrie not meeting your definition of a PG is not going to be what keeps the Cavs from a title.
What that means is that the debate about whether or not Kyrie is a point guard amounts to nothing more than an argument about labels, not about what it takes to win basketball games and a championship.
