Kyrie Irving

InBoobieWeTrust said:

If anyone has any theories, (Gouri, anyone, I'd ove to hear someone explain what I'm seeing.

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I think you pretty much nailed it..

In my opinion, I think Kyrie was just out of it yesterday. They really didn't take the game seriously; none of them did. That's why the starters played so poorly, they just weren't game ready.

By the time they were, Kyrie was ready to take over and did.

I don't think this is just a Kyrie problem though; it's really a team problem, a leadership, motivation, and spiritual problem for this team. We lack any identity or cohesiveness as a unit, and that starts with Lue and LeBron. More so LeBron than anyone else.

Our failures are, in my opinion, an emergent quality of his inability to lead a group of men due to his own hangups. This is what we saw in Miami in Year 1, a dysfunctional, disorganized, unmotivated collection of individuals - more interested in tweets and the beach and less interested in playing basketball.

If it weren't for Wade, they'd likely never have won the Finals.

In my opinion, and I know this won't be a popular one, but, the dream of the 5 years of contention with Kyrie and Love should probably end this season if we don't win a championship.

These two guys, I don't think, can really work together alongside LeBron James.
We really do need a veteran All-Star that LeBron respects in order to keep him in line. The relationships and the dynamic as it stands now is of an absentee parent more than it is of a team leader.

I don't think Kyrie or Love hate James, I think that's ridiculous. Instead, I just feel that they are both young men that need guidance and real leadership, while James feels that nothing is given to you - you have to have the initiative and demonstrate sacrifice to do it yourself.

If James isn't going to drag them into the gym everyday (the tweets) then they aren't coming. If James isn't going to drag them into practice on their off days, then they won't practice on their off-days (or they'll do it solo, like Love did the other day).

It's a systemic problem from the top-down, and there are issues about people worrying about their branding (Love, Kyrie) and folks worried about their legacy (James).. Lue doesn't seem to be able or willing to intervene to solve the problem; he was quite aggressive when he took over, but that seems to have diminished recently.

In my opinion, this offseason, if we do not win; one of Kyrie or Love needs to be traded. Lue and Griffin should be terminated for a veteran coach (/GM?) who can bring in his own team of coaches; someone James can/would respect (Doc Rivers comes to mind, and yes I know his faults, but - I think Kyrie and James would respect him regardless, which is the most important aspect of this).

I'd be inclined to overhaul this team if it continues on like this. We can't trade LeBron James, but we can create an atmosphere of accountability with a coach who commands authority, respect, and isn't afraid to use the media to chastise his players. (Again, I'd go with Doc Rivers if he gets fired).

Four reasons why I focused on the starters and the +/- stat.

1. He was the only starter with a positive finish which is telling but from the responses in here who would of thought.

2. This was the first thread everyone ran too for some odd reason. To let off some steam and non sense opinions about the game. I felt like all the threads should get equal opportunity is all.

3. Everyone was saying Kyrie was terrible blah blah blah. So I had a question. If he was terrible I wanted to know how much worse we're the other starters? That still hasn't been answered.

4. We all love stats around here except when it doesn't fit our temper tantrum narratives. Hell some nights when I thought K love have a terrible game I've seen these same posters tell someone else hey not so fast he was +5 for the game so he wasn't bad at all. So I figured everyone would want to know but I figured wrong because now no one likes the +\- stat anymore who would of thought. I assume they only like it for situations that agrees with their opinions. Priceftw posts might be endangered because we found out posters don't like stats or the +\- stat they only like it sometimes ha.

Hopefully that answered your question Jon Go Cavs.

gourimoko said:

I think you pretty much nailed it..

In my opinion, I think Kyrie was just out of it yesterday. They really didn't take the game seriously; none of them did. That's why the starters played so poorly, they just weren't game ready.

By the time they were, Kyrie was ready to take over and did.

I don't think this is just a Kyrie problem though; it's really a team problem, a leadership, motivation, and spiritual problem for this team. We lack any identity or cohesiveness as a unit, and that starts with Lue and LeBron. More so LeBron than anyone else.

Our failures are, in my opinion, an emergent quality of his inability to lead a group of men due to his own hangups. This is what we saw in Miami in Year 1, a dysfunctional, disorganized, unmotivated collection of individuals - more interested in tweets and the beach and less interested in playing basketball.

If it weren't for Wade, they'd likely never have won the Finals.

In my opinion, and I know this won't be a popular one, but, the dream of the 5 years of contention with Kyrie and Love should probably end this season if we don't win a championship.

These two guys, I don't think, can really work together alongside LeBron James.
We really do need a veteran All-Star that LeBron respects in order to keep him in line. The relationships and the dynamic as it stands now is of an absentee parent more than it is of a team leader.

I don't think Kyrie or Love hate James, I think that's ridiculous. Instead, I just feel that they are both young men that need guidance and real leadership, while James feels that nothing is given to you - you have to have the initiative and demonstrate sacrifice to do it yourself.

If James isn't going to drag them into the gym everyday (the tweets) then they aren't coming. If James isn't going to drag them into practice on their off days, then they won't practice on their off-days (or they'll do it solo, like Love did the other day).

It's a systemic problem from the top-down, and there are issues about people worrying about their branding (Love, Kyrie) and folks worried about their legacy (James).. Lue doesn't seem to be able or willing to intervene to solve the problem; he was quite aggressive when he took over, but that seems to have diminished recently.

In my opinion, this offseason, if we do not win; one of Kyrie or Love needs to be traded. Lue and Griffin should be terminated for a veteran coach (/GM?) who can bring in his own team of coaches; someone James can/would respect (Doc Rivers comes to mind, and yes I know his faults, but - I think Kyrie and James would respect him regardless, which is the most important aspect of this).

I'd be inclined to overhaul this team if it continues on like this. We can't trade LeBron James, but we can create an atmosphere of accountability with a coach who commands authority, respect, and isn't afraid to use the media to chastise his players. (Again, I'd go with Doc Rivers if he gets fired).

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Could not agree more, well said. One of them has to go. I'm not sure, unfortunately, it won't be both.

That would pain me to see Kyrie go somewhere, and really get it, and become that superstar player he's capable of being.

Our failures are, in my opinion, an emergent quality of his inability to lead a group of men due to his own hangups. This is what we saw in Miami in Year 1, a dysfunctional, disorganized, unmotivated collection of individuals - more interested in tweets and the beach and less interested in playing basketball.

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Yep, this part is key. The Heat were very dysfunctional their first year. LeBron was a roller coaster of emotions. His Dallas finals performance showed he himself was not mature enough yet to understand what it meant to win a title.

He needed a complete makeover after that. Look, LeBron is one of the greatest ever. But he's just not a leader. He needed someone else to really mold him into a completely different mindset. Hell, the guy needed a sports psychiatrist, almost.

Asking him to lead this entire organization himself. No wonder this thing is on the verge of being in shambles.

I'm not trying to blame LeBron either. I think he's a decent guy. I don't think he's poison. I think he has all the right intentions. He just bit off more than he can chew.

Kyrie said they have to have short term memory and move on to the next game.

Maybe this team has short term memory loss and completely forgets how to play basketball between each game?

I think “having a short memory” is what causes this stuff to repeat over and over in the first place.

gourimoko said:

I think you pretty much nailed it..

In my opinion, I think Kyrie was just out of it yesterday. They really didn't take the game seriously; none of them did. That's why the starters played so poorly, they just weren't game ready.

By the time they were, Kyrie was ready to take over and did.

I don't think this is just a Kyrie problem though; it's really a team problem, a leadership, motivation, and spiritual problem for this team. We lack any identity or cohesiveness as a unit, and that starts with Lue and LeBron. More so LeBron than anyone else.

Our failures are, in my opinion, an emergent quality of his inability to lead a group of men due to his own hangups. This is what we saw in Miami in Year 1, a dysfunctional, disorganized, unmotivated collection of individuals - more interested in tweets and the beach and less interested in playing basketball.

If it weren't for Wade, they'd likely never have won the Finals.

In my opinion, and I know this won't be a popular one, but, the dream of the 5 years of contention with Kyrie and Love should probably end this season if we don't win a championship.

These two guys, I don't think, can really work together alongside LeBron James.
We really do need a veteran All-Star that LeBron respects in order to keep him in line. The relationships and the dynamic as it stands now is of an absentee parent more than it is of a team leader.

I don't think Kyrie or Love hate James, I think that's ridiculous. Instead, I just feel that they are both young men that need guidance and real leadership, while James feels that nothing is given to you - you have to have the initiative and demonstrate sacrifice to do it yourself.

If James isn't going to drag them into the gym everyday (the tweets) then they aren't coming. If James isn't going to drag them into practice on their off days, then they won't practice on their off-days (or they'll do it solo, like Love did the other day).

It's a systemic problem from the top-down, and there are issues about people worrying about their branding (Love, Kyrie) and folks worried about their legacy (James).. Lue doesn't seem to be able or willing to intervene to solve the problem; he was quite aggressive when he took over, but that seems to have diminished recently.

In my opinion, this offseason, if we do not win; one of Kyrie or Love needs to be traded. Lue and Griffin should be terminated for a veteran coach (/GM?) who can bring in his own team of coaches; someone James can/would respect (Doc Rivers comes to mind, and yes I know his faults, but - I think Kyrie and James would respect him regardless, which is the most important aspect of this).

I'd be inclined to overhaul this team if it continues on like this. We can't trade LeBron James, but we can create an atmosphere of accountability with a coach who commands authority, respect, and isn't afraid to use the media to chastise his players. (Again, I'd go with Doc Rivers if he gets fired).

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Great post, I agree with all of this. To the bolded, though, I'd have to imagine Love is the odd man out, no? For all of Kyrie's issues he is younger with more potential. I am one of Love's biggest supporters on this board, and I think that we are still only using about 33% of his actual potential, but from a utilitarian standpoint Kyrie seems like the better bet.

All of this, of course, is moot if we win it all this year or have a great showing in the finals; however, that is seeming less and less likely. The question then becomes, what can we get for either Kyrie or Love, and does making the trade make us a better team? The Jae Crowder/Avery Bradley shit is still a dumb idea, but, there will be good trade options out there, there always are.

I think it will take a holy miracle to win it all this year. This is coming from someone that said we'd win it all this year.

One, I didn't see GS being historically good.

Two, I didn't think we'd have mutiny on our hands.

I like to be an optimistic as much as anyone, but this team is going to have to do a complete 180 in a few months.

I think it will get better than what we've seen, but I'm not sure its possible to make up the gap they need to win a title this year.

Mailman216 said:

3. Everyone was saying Kyrie was terrible blah blah blah. So I had a question. If he was terrible I wanted to know how much worse we're the other starters? That still hasn't been answered.

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Except Kyrie is a starter, the only reason his +/- isn't identical to the others will be because he played less minutes, or with different groups.

Hence, why it's important to note in this game that TT was a catalyst, and post-1st quarter he was actually +17.

But if you want to argue that Irving is the lone bright spot on the team inspite of his team leading 7 turnovers, and the other starters were just dragging him down ... then go for it.

Make the case or else maybe target your reply to somebody who thinks a single game +/- says all you need to know?

We are net +2.8 when Kyrie is on the floor. Positive is good, but do you know where that ranks on the team?

So we're discounting +/- all of a sudden? Because it is foolishly and quickly pointed out in here everytime it is bad...

That's funny. But fine with me. +/- is a fairly terrible metric. The usual suspects shouldn't be yapping about it next time Kyrie efficiently drops 30 but is -10 on the court (much like LeBron last night).

Rob said:

So we're discounting +/- all of a sudden? Because it is foolishly and quickly pointed out in here everytime it is bad...

That's funny. But fine with me. +/- is a fairly terrible metric. The usual suspects shouldn't be yapping about it next time Kyrie efficiently drops 30 but is -10 on the court (much like LeBron last night).

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Bingo

But I'll bite because deflection is common all of sudden. I agree with y'all Kyrie was terrible. Now please stop quoting me or answer the question since he was terrible how much worse were the other 4 starters? Please break down their performances with the same non sense details y'all are doing for Kyrie is all I have been asking. Be consistent please.

jking948 said:

To the bolded, though, I'd have to imagine Love is the odd man out, no? For all of Kyrie's issues he is younger with more potential. I am one of Love's biggest supporters on this board, and I think that we are still only using about 33% of his actual potential, but from a utilitarian standpoint Kyrie seems like the better bet.

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Seems that way... but ultimately it will depend what's on the table. Kevin has been productive and his rebounding and floor spacing work really well. If we could swap Irving for a PG who's better at facilitating and defending his position, perhaps Kevin's value would rise again?

otoh, if we can swap Love for something significant (not the Celtics' poo-poo platter) like Durant or Anthony Davis ... sign me up!

Better no deal then a bad deal. These guys could still work things out.

gourimoko said:

I don't think Kyrie or Love hate James, I think that's ridiculous. Instead, I just feel that they are both young men that need guidance and real leadership, while James feels that nothing is given to you - you have to have the initiative and demonstrate sacrifice to do it yourself.

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Why is that ridiculous?

Mailman216 said:

But I'll bite because deflection is common all of sudden. I agree with y'all Kyrie was terrible. Now please stop quoting me or answer the question since he was terrible how much worse were the other 4 starters? Please break down their performances with the same non sense details y'all are doing for Kyrie is all I have been asking. Be consistent please.

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Maybe you should reply to somebody specifically because your train of thought is approaching rhetorical diarrhea at this point ...

Some great posts here, but I disagree about the leadership point. The ultimate leadership comes from the coach and coaching staff. Jordan, Kobe and Shaq had Phil Jackson. Magic and Shaq had Riley. Duncan and co had Pop. For me, the coach is always the ultimate leader. and the best/senior players in the rosters are usually the marshals.