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2012-13 NBA Player Ranking Through 500 - Cleveland Cavaliers Edition

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Where Will Kyrie Rank?

  • 1-5

    Votes: 5 4.3%

  • 6-10

    Votes: 4 3.4%

  • 11-15

    Votes: 33 28.4%

  • 15-20

    Votes: 74 63.8%
  • Total voters
    116
This isn't about "non-Cavs fans" though. This is about a panel of supposed experts comprising a list of best players. Of course fans around the country will not give an out of town rook his fair props. I'm not really sure I was making excuses, either. I was simply laying out reasons for the way things played out. I'm not sure any rookie in the history of this league could have gotten that team to the playoffs, all things considered.

It's hard to say exactly how noticed KI was nationally, but I'm not sure he could have done much more. He beat some quality teams and did so in dramatic fashion on numerous occassions. He led the league for a quite a while in late game 3pt%, was a top 4thQ scorer all year, won every single rookie of the month award, participated in All Star weekend, absolutely lit up the Rookie/Soph game on his way to MVP honors, won Rookie of the Year in a landslide, dazzled the Olympic team, challenged Kobe to a 1 on 1 game, had Nike create an all new character in his name..and I'm sure I'm leaving out a bunch more.

I may be a bit biased for the kid, but it's not blind homerism. These experts, and I only use that term because that's what ESPN would call them, haven't a clue if they leave this kid out of the top 40. He should be much higher than that.
 
SmknJoe7 said:
This isn't about "non-Cavs fans" though. This is about a panel of supposed experts comprising a list of best players.
Click to expand...

Yeah, really it is. Outside of a guy like Hollinger who makes it a point to watch multiple games from every team in the league or Windhorst who still closely follows the Cavs, many of these guys have seen no more of the Cavs last year than the typical fan who got to see Kyrie a few times if he was healthy when playing their favorite team.

Which doesn't mean Kyrie won't make the top-40, but our evaluation of other players around the league tends to exercise the same tunnel vision that others are going to apply to Irving.

This bleacher report article predicts Kyrie will be the 22nd best player in the league: http://bleacherreport.com/articles/1230680-predicting-the-top-100-players-of-2012-13-season

Bill Simmons had Kyrie #11 in his rankings, but that evaluation includes the value of his cheap contract/youth/potential.

US basketball ranked him outside of the top-15 (or so) American players willing to commit time to the team.

Still... whether ESPN ends up evaluating Kyrie too high or too low, it's not like it means anything. He's going to do what he's going to do - not what people expect him to do.
 
he had a 22.2 PER in the playoffs - on the strength of just 3 good games.
 
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Varejao arrives at #74 this year-
 
Fear the sword has a lot of interesting stuff to say about the annual espn basketball popularity contest.

http://www.fearthesword.com/2012/9/18/3351596/looking-at-how-espn-voters-ranked-rookies

Now this is not to say that ESPN voters didn't do their homework. I know a lot of the people who voted on this and I know that they watch lots of games. I also know that it's nearly impossible to watch every single one of these players and as humans we're bound to be affected by some other factors. How many games do you think the average voter saw of Harrison Barnes? What about Dion Waiters and Damian Lillard? The difference is probably pretty significant. You probably heard a hell of a lot more about Sullinger coming up to the draft than you did Meyers Leonard. Leonard ranked 330th while Sullinger ranked 247th. Levy talks about immediate impact and perhaps that a valid explanation, but the difference just seems exaggerated if you ask me. There are some very smart basketball minds voting on these ranks, but I think our opinions are impacted by hype and familiarity a lot more than we like to admit.
Click to expand...
 
Maybe the voters were influenced by the fact Waiters looked over his head in summer league, and Sullinger looked fine ... not at all like his knees were going to explode.

And rating MKG higher than Kyrie was rated last year, only means the voters are higher on MKG than they were on Irving last year - not a big surprise given how few games Irving played and the lack of any sort of summer league.

Unfortunately, there's a lot of Cavs-fan-bias in Conrad's article.
 
Well getting a peek at the current crop of players 31-40 I dont think Kyrie will break the top 20.. but I could be wrong.
 
26-30 came out today with no Kyrie, so he's cracked the top 25. 5 more come out tomorrow and I have a feeling that Kyrie will be included in that group.
 
I gotta think the voters were influenced by the Kyrie mania at the Team USA vs Select Team practices this summer. Expectations are very high for this kid but I have no doubt he will meet and exceed them. I truly believe he will develop into a top 10 player in this league within 3 years if he remains healthy. The health isn't a given though, and that scares the shit out of me.
 
WE have a top 25 player for sure.. and he isn't even able to drink legally yet. Lightning has struck twice ..
 
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