Is Kyrie and his bargain contract worth IT, Jae, and a lottery pick?
Cleveland would almost have to take that deal, but the only way that it clearly helps us is financially.
It helps us quite a bit on the basketball floor as well.
Irving, upgrade over IT4.
Hayward, upgrade over Bradley.
Morris, upgrade over Crowder.
Baynes, upgrade over Amir.
4 huge upgrades all around from last year. PLUS the kid, Tatum. That's a stacked team imo.
I think Cleveland wants quite a bit more though.
Hayward, Morris, Baynes and Tatum are all here already. The only thing that trade does is turn IT into Irving at the cost of Crowder and our best draft pick. Makes zero sense for Boston.
Just talking off-season in general. 4 huge upgrades 'tis all.
Didn't think I needed to go in detail on how Irving is better than IT4.
I'm interested in your reasons for this belief. I'm not trying to be contrary, but I'm not seeing how Irving is a "clear upgrade" on IT. Irving had better FG and 3PT percentages last season, and more rebounds per game, but IT had a higher eFG%, more points per game, slightly more assists per game, slightly better FT%, and a higher PER. Irving has a height advantage, but still isn't a good defensive player. Irving might be the best one-on-one scorer in the league, but that doesn't really fit with how the Celtics operate.
I certainly don't think he's worth giving up Thomas AND a high lottery pick.
Offensively, & significantly defensively.
Younger, cheaper, and actually worth paying the max unlike IT4.
Age is about the only thing I can agree with. IT4 is better offensively by pretty much every possibly metric other than "cross-over ability". Kyrie is taller but it doesn't matter much since he's a terrible defender with a lousy attitude who cares to little about team, that's he's quitting a team where he won a title.
Shooting efficiency: IT4
Scoring per minute: IT4
assist rate: IT4
plus/minus, VORP, Win Shares: IT4
defensive rating: tied!
He's 3 years younger and that does matter, but he's also got the same number of NBA seasons under his belt and IT4 appears to be a harder worker.
If you can cast physical attributes asidie, then from a pure statistics and skill point of view, I do not consider Kyrie to be a significant upgrade (if at all) over Thomas.
Unfortunately in the NBA however you cannot cast aside physical attributes, because they play a major part in determining how matchups are played out. As amazing as Thomas is as a player, his size is a major, major liability much of the time he is on the court.
We all saw how Washington and Cleveland picked on Thomas - throwing bigger guards on him and posting him up every time, forcing mismatches and killing us almost every time. It takes a huge amount of extra effort from everybody on the team to help out and cover those mismatches, which makes it harder for those guys to keep on top of their own man.
I feel like Crowder and Bradley both dropped off defensively this year, and I would imagine a lot of that probably has to do with them constantly having to cover for Thomas now that opposing teams have been trying to force mismatches on him more than ever.
Last I checked I believe that Isaiah Thomas does have the worst (or second worst) defensive RPM among all NBA guards, and despite having one of the best offensive RPM's his overall net RPM is still barely positive. That's the reality of IT.
IT averaged 29 PPG last year, and the truth of the matter is that you pretty much NEED him to score 29+ points just to make up for his defensive limitations. If IT goes out and "only" gives you 25 or 26 points, then he's a liability.
That sounds extreme, but it's true.
Kyrie by comparison is also a shoddy defensive player, but nowhere near AS shoddy as Thomas is. At 6'3" - 6'4" he at least has the size to put up some kind of defensive resistance against opposing point guards. Guys can't easily just post him up or shoot straight over the top of him the way they can with Thomas. You can't just build an entire gameplan based around exploiting Kyrie's defense they way you can with Thomas.
It's no accident that Boston became tougher for Cleveland to beat after Thomas went down. It's not because Thomas isn't a great player, it's because it became so much more difficult for Cleveland to exploit any one matchup when we had Smart out here instead of Thomas.
I think that if we trade Thomas for Kyrie we immediately become better - a lot better. Not because Kyrie is a better player, just because that larger duo of Kyrie / Gordon would give us one of the bigger and most offensively potent backcourts in the NBA - one that could legitimately give Steph and Klay just as many nightmares as they would give us. And with both guys being in the 25/26 range, both guys are young enough to stick around while we develop Tatum (who I think sill be a bonafide All-Star) - while Thomas (turning around 28 this year) will be getting into his 30s by the time Tatum is in his 3rd year.
Topic: ESPN: Kyrie no longer wants to play w/ Lebron = reason for request. trade soon? (Read 16489 times)