Kyrie Irving

[Doc Shakalou]

from NBA Memes on Facebook (they love Kyrie)

The meme itself in this next one isn't all that original or good, but the actual photo made me laugh.

[bob2the2nd]

The meme itself in this next one isn't all that original or good, but the actual photo made me laugh.

what the picture of a guys crotch?

[metalman213]

.@KDTrey5 says Stephen Curry, David Lee and Kyrie Irving should be All-Stars. Durant also called Irving a Top 5 PG.

.

[BimboColesHair]

.

So, you're telling me Durant is coming to Cleveland when he's a free agent?

[AuxiliaryPie]

So, you're telling me Durant is coming to Cleveland when he's a free agent?

Trade boobie and walton, maybe omri to make salaries work

[apolo29]

Okay. Question. Nobody get mad.

Why doesn't kyrie dunk? I feel like he dunked maybe 5 times last year, all on fastbreaks, all very weak dunks.

I know he can. I've seen videos of him dunking. He dunks pretty strongly in the uncle drew videos, wearing 50 extra pounds and makeup. So what's the in game anti-dunk sentiment?
The only thing I can think of is he doesn't like being flashy or something. But a dunk can change the momentum of the game. It stirs up the entire crowd. It demoralizes the opponent. So why not do it? Has he ever answered this question?

I remember this moment in the last game, where he did a backdoor cut on the baseline, received the pass perfectly and I swore he was going to dunk it and instead he did a lay up.

[wuck]

Has he ever answered this question?

See post #4450 in this thread (and the ones that follow it).

Apparently he used to dunk a lot in high school but (following the toe injury) he hasn't dunked as much. I am not sure if there is a definitive answer there, but he has been asked. I remember the interview but it's hazy.

[Daniel89]

Okay. Question. Nobody get mad. Why doesn't kyrie dunk?

I really don't care about that and I bet Kyrie doesn't either. I actually prefer his variety of high-percentage layups over a dunk. I think he even could dunk in traffic sometimes, but it's just not his game at all. I would be scared having a point guard like Rose or Westbrook who try to throw down a huge dunk every other game. Though injuries occur in a lot of ways and Westbrook somehow manages to stay injury-free, I wouldn't want Kyrie trying to throw down any dunks in traffic, not even a big dunk alone on the fastbreak or on a cut to the rim.

But I'm happy that Kyrie has dunked in a Cavs uni already, so that we dont have to face a Mike Brown-like interview after a future playoff game.

[Kovah]

That Kyrie vs Lilliard article was seriously one of the biggest pieces of trash I have read in awhile, I even got sucked into debates in the comment section because I was so annoyed.

[Dr. Gymbo]

Trade boobie and walton, maybe omri to make salaries work

They'd have to throw in the Toronto pick too in order to sweeten the deal for me.

[blommen]

That Kyrie vs Lilliard article was seriously one of the biggest pieces of trash I have read in awhile, I even got sucked into debates in the comment section because I was so annoyed.

haven't seen that article. Link?

[SanduskyCav]

Okay. Question. Nobody get mad.

Why doesn't kyrie dunk? I feel like he dunked maybe 5 times last year, all on fastbreaks, all very weak dunks.

I know he can. I've seen videos of him dunking. He dunks pretty strongly in the uncle drew videos, wearing 50 extra pounds and makeup. So what's the in game anti-dunk sentiment?
The only thing I can think of is he doesn't like being flashy or something. But a dunk can change the momentum of the game. It stirs up the entire crowd. It demoralizes the opponent. So why not do it? Has he ever answered this question?

I remember this moment in the last game, where he did a backdoor cut on the baseline, received the pass perfectly and I swore he was going to dunk it and instead he did a lay up.

Almost positive that Kyrie was asked this in an interview last season and said he doesn't dunk because it is wasted energy.

[MVP_Eric_10]

Link: http://insider.espn.go.com/nba/story...rios-top-25-25


Long-term potential of young stars

The best- and worst-case scenarios for the "25 Under 25"

Updated: January 23, 2013, 12:52 PM ET

By Neil Paine | Basketball-Reference.com


Kevin Durant, just 24 years old, has the potential to be one of the greatest players ever.

25 UNDER 25 | HIGHEST CEILINGS | NEXT 10

The release of our NBA "25 Under 25" rankings Tuesday showcased just how much young basketball talent is in the league these days. But let's not jump to conclusions and expect every name on the list to eventually become a Hall of Famer.

While a chosen few will end their careers with those kinds of numbers, it's easy to forget that similar lists from the past would be littered with names such as Darius Miles, Joe Smith, Eddie Griffin and Tim Thomas. These are players with vast potential who -- for one reason or another -- failed to follow the path to superstardom laid out before them by scouts and pundits.

As human beings, we have a strong tendency to remember the successful predictions and forget the unsuccessful ones, underestimating the error bars we should put around any future predictions. One remedy for this, though, is to develop statistically based predictions, looking to the past to see how accurate such predictions were. That's what I did for the first 10 names on our "25 Under 25" list, creating a most likely career value projection -- but, more importantly, creating confidence intervals that show just how little we can trust early-career predictions.

The width of these intervals underscores the saying: "It's tough to make predictions, especially about the future."

1. Kevin Durant
Most Likely Comparable Career Value: Patrick Ewing, Dominique Wilkins
Best Case: Michael Jordan, Magic Johnson
Worst Case: Joe Dumars, Michael Finley

Durant has played enough that predictions about his career are as accurate as anybody on our list. Even so, the gulf between his best case and worst case is wide enough that it still spans between Jordan, the greatest player ever, and fringe Hall of Fame cases such as Dumars and Finley.

2. Russell Westbrook
Most Likely Comparable Career Value: Isiah Thomas, Tim Hardaway
Best Case: Gary Payton, John Stockton
Worst Case: John Starks, Mitch Richmond

As Kevin Pelton wrote in our rankings, shoot-first point guards such as Westbrook tend to peak early, just as Thomas did. Those who had more staying power -- the most absurd example of which was Stockton -- extended their careers by relying heavily on playmaking skills instead of scoring. Which path will Westbrook follow?

3. Blake Griffin
Most Likely Comparable Career Value: Kevin McHale, Chris Webber
Best Case: Karl Malone, Charles Barkley
Worst Case: Antonio McDyess, Larry Johnson

Griffin has steadily improved since entering the league, to the point that he is on pace for a Hall of Fame (or at least near-Hall of Fame) career. He hasn't missed a single game since sitting out his entire rookie season with a knee injury, an encouraging sign for a player whose worst-case comparisons (McDyess and Johnson) were tracking for similarly strong careers before being derailed by injuries.

4. James Harden
Most Likely Comparable Career Value: Grant Hill, Chris Mullin
Best Case: Clyde Drexler, Paul Pierce
Worst Case: Dale Ellis, Cedric Ceballos

Harden is still young enough that his future could be all over the place, from a sub-Hall of Fame player like Ceballos to the likes of Drexler, and everywhere in between. Based on historical trends, it's much too early to say with any certainty what Harden's eventual legacy will be.

5. Derrick Rose
Most Likely Comparable Career Value: Tracy McGrady, Penny Hardaway
Best Case: John Stockton, Allen Iverson
Worst Case: Brandon Roy, Gilbert Arenas

It's a sadly fitting coincidence that Rose's most comparable players in terms of likely career value were McGrady and Hardaway, two players who shined brightly early in their careers before being decimated by injuries as they got older. It's likely we've seen Rose's best season already, but it would be nice for him to come back and not let a torn ACL significantly diminish his production going forward.

6. Kyrie Irving
Most Likely Comparable Career Value: Maurice Cheeks, Tim Hardaway
Best Case: Jason Kidd, Kobe Bryant
Worst Case: Michael Redd, Steve Francis

Irving is another player whose career is much too young to make any kind of definitive prediction, but his early pace has been phenomenal. The amount of variance in any future prediction is massive, but few players in history were as good in their first two seasons as Irving has been -- and he's still just 20 years old.

7. Serge Ibaka
Most Likely Comparable Career Value: Anthony Mason, Juwan Howard
Best Case: Ben Wallace, Patrick Ewing
Worst Case: Ralph Sampson, Kendrick Perkins

The 23-year-old Ibaka is still a work in progress; as Kevin pointed out, he's even begun to add a long-range game this season. That makes the range of possibilities particularly wide, from a defensive dominator like Wallace (how quickly we forget that Big Ben had one of the biggest on-court defensive impacts ever recorded during his Detroit heyday) to an all-around frontcourt stalwart like Mason. Even the worst-case scenarios -- Perkins and the questionable Hall of Famer Sampson -- are intriguing.

8. Kevin Love
Most Likely Comparable Career Value: Shawn Kemp, Alonzo Mourning
Best Case: Charles Barkley, Dikembe Mutombo
Worst Case: LaSalle Thompson, Herb Williams

Love was once tracking for a Hall of Fame career, but injuries this season -- and his subsequent decline in play -- have significantly widened the confidence intervals around his projected future value. Hence the presence of players like Thompson and Williams as the worst-case scenario alongside names like Barkley as the best case. The best guess for Love's career is somewhere in between, but there's a lot more variance in that guess than there was last year.

9. Brook Lopez
Most Likely Comparable Career Value: A.C. Green, P.J. Brown
Best Case: Robert Parish, Rasheed Wallace
Worst Case: Kenny Thomas, Ralph Sampson

Lopez's up-and-down career -- predicated mainly on inconsistent play at the defensive end -- causes any prediction about his career value to be a shot in the dark. If his apparent uptick in performance this season represents a real turning point, those most likely comparisons could get better than Green and Brown in a hurry.

10. Stephen Curry
Most Likely Comparable Career Value: Mark Price, Baron Davis
Best Case: Reggie Miller, Allen Iverson
Worst Case: B.J. Armstrong, Lindsey Hunter

If Curry can keep himself healthy and in the lineup, he'll likely finish with a terrific career (you could do a lot worse than ending up like Davis and Price), but there's just enough uncertainty to make his best-case scenarios securely in Hall of Fame territory and drag his worst-case scenarios down as well.

The grand lesson? Don't be overconfident in how young players will pan out. While each of the players on our "25 Under 25" list is likely to go on to a good career, there always remains the possibility that things will not work out as planned.

[Jon]

I actually prefer a player like Kyrie who can get his points without relying on ridiculous speed or athleticism. That means he's likely to have a much longer career than guys like Derrick Rose who are defined by their speed and leaping ability rather than their skills. Wade is a great example of this. His athleticism is starting to fail him and, because he lacks the ability to consistently score from outside, his game can really struggle at times. Once his athleticism is gone entirely, he'll be borderline useless.

Contrast that with Kobe, a guy who had both elite athleticism and elite fundamentals. Kobe's still dropping 30 a game in the midst of one of his more efficient seasons because Kobe can score without dominating the game athletically. He's still a decent athlete, but he very clearly lacks the jaw-dropping athleticism he came into the league with. Does anyone think Wade will be doing the same in five years?

5 years? Kobe is just 3.5 years older than Wade. Wade's PER at 31 has "fallen" to 23.4 this season and he's currently at a career high in FG%, 3PT%, and eFG%. When Kobe was 31, he was on a championship team, and his PER dipped that season to 21.9. Wade is plenty talented. I think he can play just fine with decreased athleticism - the question is whether he can stay healthy.

I'm glad that Kyrie is both highly skilled *and* highly athletic. They will both serve him well in the short term and in the long term.

[Jon]

Almost positive that Kyrie was asked this in an interview last season and said he doesn't dunk because it is wasted energy.

That's what I'd expect. As long as nobody is able to block his layups, why bother? He could get undercut, crash in to a camera-man, hurt his wrist on the rim, etc, all for the same 2 points.

Now, if he could finish in traffic more efficiently by powering his way to the rim and slamming the ball down rather than trying one of his high difficulty trick shots, that'd be fine, but there's still something to be said (especially given his size) to avoiding contact when possible.